End-of-life mattresses, a waste management nightmare｜Taiwan News скачать в хорошем качестве

End-of-life mattresses, a waste management nightmare｜Taiwan News

When was the last time you replaced your mattress? Do you know where it went after disposal? According to the Ministry of Environment, more than 950,000 mattresses are thrown away every year. They’re a complete nuisance for waste management, not only for their sheer size, but also because they’re a fire hazard and contain chemical pollutants. Let’s take a look in our Sunday special report. A good mattress is the perfect place to sink into after a long day. But it doesn’t last forever. Sooner or later, you’ll have to replace it. Most disposed mattresses are collected by local environmental protection departments, or through furniture sellers at a fee. But where exactly do they end up? Over 4,000 mattresses are piled up here “temporarily” at this waste storage site in Taichung’s Shengang District. Waste mattresses from around half of Taichung are stored here. Tseng Chin-hsuan Shengang sanitation worker Taichung collects around 70,000 disposed mattresses a year, around 6,000 a month. Each cleaning team keeps collecting more and the number accumulated keeps growing and growing. This problem must be resolved. According to the Ministry of Environment, at least 950,000 mattresses are discarded annually in Taiwan. Large-sized furniture cannot be loaded into an incinerator directly. With a crane, the outer layer is peeled off in a couple of maneuvers, revealing the mattress springs. In the past, this would be done manually by sanitation workers. Tseng Chin-hsuan Shengang sanitation worker With a traditional innerspring mattress, just remove the outer layer and you’ll see the mattress coil. But with more pocket spring mattresses, it’s becoming more and more difficult to take them apart. Pocket spring mattresses have become more widely used than innerspring mattresses. In 2021, less than 40% of all disposed mattresses were pocket spring mattresses. But that number has skyrocketed to almost 70% in 2024. They’ve become a huge headache for sanitation workers in the country. Hundreds of springs wrapped in individual pockets of cotton cloth, all sewn together into a plane. These individual compartments may be more comfortable for the sleeper, but it’s a complete nuisance to take apart. Each compartment must be cut open by hand to fully dismantle the mattress. Tseng Chin-hsuan Shengang sanitation worker A pocket spring mattress takes three to four times the manpower or time. Now it makes no sense to have workers take them apart, so a crusher is needed to replace manual labor. To speed things up, many municipalities began adopting crushers. For example, in Taichung, sanitation workers first transport disposed mattresses to a temporary storage site or landfill. After a certain number’s accumulated, they ask an external vendor to dispatch a crusher. The crusher crunches a mattress, immediately belching steel shavings, as well as fabric and foam scraps onto the ground. The metal can be sold, but the fabric and foam will have to be incinerated. Every step in the process incurs additional costs. Most third-party operators are unwilling to take on this assignment, because it’s just too much work, so now waste management authorities must take things into their own hands. For example, Taipei has its very own in-house mattress dismantler. Hsu Li-hao Taipei Waste Disposal Site director We receive around 85,000 to 95,000 mattresses a year. We have two crane operators dismantling them. They can take apart 500 mattresses a day at most. This is Mr. Liu, a highly skilled crane operator. He’s able to take apart 40 mattresses an hour. Lui Ching-chi Crane operator If there’s a lot and you don’t hurry up, there will be more. Even if you’re dispatching more manpower. Special municipalities, such as Taipei, New Taipei and Taichung have more comprehensive recycling facilities, so they’re still able to manage all the waste. But that’s not necessarily the case with other smaller municipalities. If they’re operations run over capacity, then the mattresses can only be left out in the open. That not only takes up precious space. It’s also an environmental hazard. In July 2024, a fire started in Miaoli’s temporary storage site for disposed furniture. And in September, the landfill in Hsinchu’s Xiangshan District also went up in flames. Both incidents were caused by the immense number of mattresses that spontaneously lit up. Lin Zuo-hsiang Environmental Management Administration Some mattresses aren’t sent to the incineration plant to be incinerated after they break. They catch fire due to mismanagement. Tseng Chin-hsuan Shengang sanitation worker We’re actually really afraid of fire hazards where we place the spring mattresses. So we must have sufficient firefight #台灣新聞 #TaiwanNews #民視新聞 #FTV新聞 #Taiwan