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A mattress recycling factory in Bridgeport is bringing jobs to those who need them – while disposing mattresses in an environmentally-friendly way. WNPR’s Neena Satija reports on Park City Green.
44-year-old Angel Morales is surrounded by piles and piles of old mattresses. His job is to deconstruct them using his hands and a utility blade.
“I’m just cutting all the way around, and I take the edges, and I swing them down. And then I separate ‘em," Morales explains as he works. "And basically I take the wood and I throw it on one side and the springs to the other side, if there’s springs inside of it.”
Morales is one of three people here at Park City Green who deconstructs mattresses. He can walk to his job from his house just a few blocks away in the South End. Morales says the job is a boon for him and other workers, who come from the poorer areas of Bridgeport or from the re-entry population.
“I enjoy myself," he says. "It kills time, and I’m doing something constructive.”
Right now Morales and his co-workers get through around 50 mattresses a day. The hope is that as they continue to train on the job, that number will grow substantially. Adrienne Houel is CEO of The Green Team, a non-profit in Bridgeport that runs the factory.
“It’s really exciting," Houel says, "because there aren’t many like it across the United States. This is kind of a new effort for the U.S.”
Since Park City Green opened just under two months ago, about 500 mattresses have come in every week. Houel says the goal is to bring in ten times that and to employ around 20 people at full capacity. The factory brings in revenue in two ways: charging around $13-18 per mattress to take it off someone’s hands, and then reselling all its component parts once it’s deconstructed.
Eventually, Houel says Park City Green could collect $1.5 million in revenue each year. But the factory needs more mattresses. The state came close to passing legislation requiring mattress recycling, but it hasn’t happened yet. So for now, most mattresses are still incinerated.
Read more in the Connecticut Mirror at ctmirror.org.
