Putting environmental waste to bed

Online furniture, bedding and appliance retailer Andoo is the first business to launch a mattress recycling solution in partnership with All Heart NZ.

Currently, around 300,000 mattresses end up in landfill in New Zealand every year and cause a raft of additional issues as they clog machinery, are difficult to compact, and create large soft spaces that can turn into sinkholes after filling.

Until now, despite efforts being made to create a Product Stewardship Scheme, there is no industry or government-led scheme currently in place.

Andoo, a Winning Group business, identified this lack of offering and staying true to its commitment to care for customers, communities and the planet, devised a solution in partnership with All Heart NZ, to offer an environmentally safe solution.

At the end of last year, Andoo funded a trial for All Heart NZ to dismantle mattresses that had been collected from customers and had been stored at their Auckland Distribution Centre. Following the successful trial in December, All Heart NZ were able to recycle 77% of mattress components, ensuring that a significant portion of a mattress does not need to end up in landfill.

Troy Tindill, NZ Country Manager, said, “At Andoo, our mission is to deliver feel-good shopping experiences. We care deeply for our customers, our team, communities and the planet. When we launched in New Zealand almost 12 months ago, no business offered a mattress recycling solution. We are proud to now be able to offer mattress recycling free of charge to customers, a New Zealand first, in partnership with All Heart NZ. Customers shopping with us can have the confidence that we will take back the old mattress and recycle it, diverting as much as 77% from landfill.”

Alice Kuepper, Head of Sustainable Business & CSR, said “We are proud to be working with All Heart NZ, to bring a voluntary product stewardship solution for mattresses to New Zealand. Following a successful trial in December, we were able to recycle 77% of mattress components, ensuring that a significant portion of a mattress does not need to end up in landfill. Our partnership with All Heart NZ has been instrumental to further our sustainability efforts both environmentally and socially through All Heart NZ’s services – ReDirect, RePurpose and ReThink.”

Andoo launched in the New Zealand market in March 2022 and continues to remain committed to sustainability efforts, both environmentally and socially by contributing to and engaging with various organisations such as All Heart NZ.

“Companies such as Andoo, who are committed to taking responsibility for their impact on the environment and reducing waste to landfill, are key to the success of this service,” says Colinda Rowe, Sustainability Development Manager at All Heart NZ.

All Heart NZ uses the funds raised through their sustainability services to support partner organisations to reduce poverty, increase access to education and provide wellbeing services. To date, All Heart NZ has diverted over 4774 tonnes of goods from landfill and helped more than 466 communities across Aotearoa, having raised or saved over NZ$14 million.

With the new mattress recycling initiative in place, Andoo customers shopping with the e-retailer can have full confidence that their mattress, once ready to be replaced, will be taken and recycled, diverting it from landfill.