The seven year ditch

“Breaking up is hard to do. Now I know. I know that it’s true. Come on baby, let’s start anew. ‘Cause breaking up is hard to do” —Neil Sedaka

Catchy song and strangely appropriate when it comes to the task of trying to take mattresses apart when they get ditched every seven years or so.

The Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan acknowledged that England would reach crisis point in 2022 if there wasn’t an immediate focus on managing bulkier waste streams. According to their report, over 1.6 million tonnes of bulky waste is sent to landfill every year, with furniture and mattresses accounting for 42% of this.

In 2018, with 45.4 million tonnes of waste dumped into landfills in England every year, and with only enough space for another 175.1 million tonnes of waste left in total, it was clear that England’s landfills would be full by 2022.

It is estimated that 10 million mattresses were discarded across the country in 2020. This is a disaster for future generations, who now face the horrifying prospect of dealing with mountains of decaying mattresses piled high and landfills fully crammed exuding dangerous levels of methane.

Time to wake up and smell the methane. Methane is 84 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and has caused about 30% of global heating to date.

In 2018, the UK government released details of its ‘Clean Growth Strategy’ and announced its zero avoidable waste to landfill by 2050. It stated that ‘eliminating all waste where it is technologically, environmentally and economically practicable to do so” and promised that it would be “working to support innovation in new materials, products and processes that extend the range of materials covered by this categorisation”.

But, what exactly is avoidable waste and what are its plans to deal with the 1.6 million plus tonnes of bulky waste and the 10 million mattresses discarded in 2020 in the UK?

If the greatest way zero avoidable waste can be achieved is through businesses taking responsibility and working together to create sustainable and circular solutions, then here we are.

We have acted and we have created a technologically advanced and mattress-free bed that addresses all the problems with mattresses, because we were so horrified by the atrocious state of mattress design, that we started anew.

AMMIQUE BED WRAP
Goldilocks was a trespasser who tested all three
The Princess was tested and she still felt the pea
And then of course there was Wee Willy Winky
Mattresses have perplexed since the dawn of bedtime
So – here is our bed wrap to unwrap our story in rhyme
Beneath the sheets we found padding and we also found springs
There was horsehair, lambs’ wool, latex, foam and many other things
Covered in damask and fabrics, buttoned, pocketed, layered and glued
Every mattress we looked at was confusing and we did not think that was shrewd
So – we started anew, and we searched and researched what a mattress should do
And we discovered that mattresses were made to fail which seemed rather askew
So – we devised a unique solution – AMMIQUE – a mattress free bed and a sleep brand too
Made to last a lifetime its benefits are unrivalled and thoroughly thought through
Because everyone loves a great night’s sleep – from Westward Ho to Timbuktu
That’s why we remade the bed to be better for the planet and also for you

Join us and be part of the change we need in the world

Download a copy of the source report