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Do you own a mattress you want to get rid of and it happens to be in excellent/undamaged condition? If yes, you could potentially donate the mattress to one of the numerous charitable organizations. Let’s take a look at some of the charities have are currently accepting mattress donations.
Where to Donate a Mattress to a Charity
Plenty of charitable organizations accept donated mattresses as long as the mattress is free of tears, holes, signs of bed bug infestations, mold, broken or bent coils, stains, and odors.
Here are some of your mattress donation options:
- Habitat for Humanity
- Salvation Army
- Furniture Bank Association of America
- Religious organizations
- Local charities
- Homeless shelters
Habitat for Humanity mattress donations
You might know Habitat for Humanity as an international organization that builds and provides homes for low-income families worldwide, but they also accept mattress donations.
Their donation centers accept mattresses and other new or gently used products. These centers are called ReStore centers. You can go to Habitat for Humanity website and find your closest ReStore center.
Salvation Army mattress donations
This organization ensures donated mattresses reach those who really need them, such as victims of various disasters, domestic abuse, and other misfortunes.
Salvation Army will pick up your mattress in most locations. All you need to do is check whether your local Salvation Army thrift store is one of them or go to their website and enter your zip code to see if you can schedule a pickup. If you live far from a Salvation Army store, you might have to deliver it yourself, but they’ll still accept it!
Furniture Bank Association of America mattress donations
The National Furniture Bank Association has an online database of people who need mattresses and other home furnishings in the entire North America.
Most local Furniture Banks offer mattress pickup service and you can even schedule the pickup on the website if you live within 20 miles of the store. The mattress will end up with those in need either at a low cost or at no cost.
Goodwill mattress donations
Goodwill is another organization with stores all over the US. Goodwill thrift stores sell used goods at low prices and use the profits for training and education of the less fortunate people.
They mainly offer clothing and home goods to those who live in low-income homes, but they might also accept mattress donations – not all locations do, but you can always contact them and ask. They accept gently used mattresses that are in good shape.
Religious organizations
Many religious organizations and churches take part in charity work. You could try visiting a local religious center – if they don’t personally take the furniture, they will surely be able to tell you where you can donate a mattress.
Even better, they may even know the actual individual who’s going through hardship and you might be able to skip the whole hassle by simply getting the mattress directly to the person in need.
Local charities
If you don’t live close to any large donation centers, you can find a local charity and see if they would accept your used mattress. Depending on the type of charity, you’ll meet various acceptability criteria, pickup/delivery rules, etc.
Check online for local charity organizations or ask people whether they know of a good charity nearby. You could use the opportunity to donate more than the old mattress.
Donating a mattress to local homeless shelters
It’s very common for a homeless shelter to accept donated mattresses, and they might be in dire need of one. They will be especially grateful if your mattress is in good condition because both homeless and women’s shelters are so short of mattresses, that they tend to accept even misshapen ones, just to be able to provide a bed for someone who needs it right away.
What Will Cause a Charity to Reject Your Mattress Donation
Being a highly personal thing, mattresses are best sold or donated if in a condition that’s as close to new as possible. But don’t worry! Your unwanted mattress could get by even if it’s not so perfect as long as it doesn’t have flaws that would make it automatically rejected.
Here are the main reasons charities refuse mattress donations:
- Tears, rips, or stains
- Bed bugs and other infestations
- Broken coils and other structural problems
- Smell
Tears, rips, or stains
If the mattress has rips and tears, don’t even try to donate it. Some types of damage might be fixable, such as smaller tears – you can get that done and then see which charity is willing to accept it.
As for the stains, there’s a lot you can do with common housecleaning products to clean your mattress. Most charitable organizations will decline stained mattresses. It’s unsanitary and, quite frankly, rude to offer mattresses stained with blood or other substances to those in need.
Bed bugs and other infestations
According to statistics, highly populated states such as Illinois, Ohio, and New York are at the top of the list with the highest number of bed bug reports. Whether you live in one of those or in any other state, you should perform a just-in-case check to make sure your mattress doesn’t have any kind of unwanted pests.
Bed bugs aren’t the only infestation your mattress might have – some people had carpet beetles get into their mattresses. Many types of bugs start off with a larval stage, and if they lay their eggs on the mattress, you might even find worms crawling on the surface.
These creatures, especially bed bugs, quickly infest all beds and other furniture around them so no charity will accept a mattress that is infested. You could fix some small-scale problems, but infestations that got out of hand should be handled by professionals.
Broken coils and other structural problems
Mattresses with damaged structure, i.e. sagging mattresses typically have broken coils and/or worn-out comfort or support layers. Since they aren’t serving the very purpose they were made for – and that is good sleep – charitable organizations are unlikely to want to deal with any such mattresses.
They might have been improperly stored – for example, they could have been placed on the side for a long period of time which eventually damaged the structural integrity. Such mattresses lump up or get misshapen.
More commonly, the mattresses were simply used for so long that they don’t offer proper support anymore because coils broke or foam layers got flattened out.
Smell
Bad smells are the unmistakable first sign that something’s wrong with the mattress in the hygiene department. Whether it’s mold and mildew, an infestation, pet urine, or the mattress just being really old – nobody wants to sleep there and nobody wants to risk infesting other furniture with your smelly mattress.
You should clean the mattress or at the very least freshen it up before you donate it.
How to Give Away Your Mattress
Apart from donating, you can try places like:
- Craigslist and Facebook marketplace
- Freecycle.org, and
- Thrift shops
if you want to get rid of the mattress and still help someone.
Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace
Both Craigslist and Facebook marketplace have a lot of traffic and are good places to post when you want to sell or offer a free mattress. We even made an entire guide on selling a used mattress on Craigslist.
Freecycle.org
Freecycle is a website with a great idea – people in local communities either post stuff they don’t need or post about what they’re looking for. So instead of their old items ending up on a street or a landfill, others can pick them up for free!
You can communicate with anyone interested directly on the website, and only exchange contact information when it’s time to pick up or deliver.
Thrift shops
You’ll probably have no trouble finding a local thrift store that accepts mattress donations because most of them do. You might have to deliver it yourself, so to avoid getting into an uncomfortable situation of hearing them decline your mattress, first share a photo with them and describe the mattress in detail – especially ask if any of the existing wear signs would be a dealbreaker.
Recycling a Mattress
Getting rid of an old mattress that can’t be used by anyone else means just one thing – recycling. OK, or two things, the second one being upcycling (turns out, there are a lot of things you can use those old coils for).
If you opt for some of the recycling programs, here are three that could help you.
Earth 911
This is an online database of recycling centers – just enter your zip code in the search bar, and you’ll see the closest locations, working hours, and what items they recycle.
City recycling programs
If you live in any major city in the US, you should check your city’s programs. They might pick it up from your curb on certain days. Bear in mind that recycling centers often don’t take heavily soiled and infested mattresses. Check what mattresses they would accept and make sure yours meets those criteria.
Bye, Bye Mattress
This is a program restricted to three states – California, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Bye Bye mattress is expanding and it’s expected to become available in other areas as well. What they do is offer contacts to the nearest recycling programs in a bid to avoid filling up landfills with unwanted mattresses.
FAQs
You should be able to, but don’t just show up with a mattress – call them first and ask whether they accept mattresses and what kinds they do not accept. Infested and unsanitary mattresses pose a danger to workers who need to open them up in order to reuse the materials.
Yes, there are lots of British charities that accept used mattresses, such as – Heart Foundation, Red Cross, Stella’s Voice UK, Emmaus, Gumtree, Furniture Re-use Network, and many more.
Yes, if it’s good as new, you can donate it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Homeless shelters, animal shelters, or thrift stores will also accept them.
Yes, you can get your old mattress or box spring to any Bye Bye Mattress participating location. Goodwill, Salvation Army, and other charities mentioned above operate in California as well.
Yes, ReStore will pick up your used mattress as long as it’s not too damaged. In some locations, you might need to drop it off yourself.
Either use Earth 911, or check some of the popular large networks such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, ReStore, and Furniture Bank Association, or simply go to Google Maps and type “donate mattresses near me”. Then look at the results and call those organizations to check if they would take a used mattress.
Conclusion
There are plenty of well-known network organizations where you can donate a mattress. There are also shelters, religious organizations, and thrift stores. Some of them will pick it up for free and at some places you’ll have to drop it off yourself. You could also offer your mattress for free on one of the social media platforms or other websites that connect people.
If your mattress gets rejected by a charity because it’s heavily damaged, you can recycle it with the help of some of the recycling programs. If the mattress is infested or too unsanitary, it might even be rejected for recycling, in which case it will have to end up in a landfill.
Every one of the options requires you to be honest about the state of the mattress – it will save you unnecessary trouble and point you in the right direction, so you’ll know how to proceed.
Next step: Read our guide to mattresses with a lifetime warranty. If you don’t want to have to worry about the hassle of donating your next mattress if something goes wrong, it’s worth taking a look at brands that offer a warranty for life.
With over 5 years experience writing about sleep and mattresses, she's considered one of the go-to experts on the topic.
She likes cycling, nature, art, and languages. She pays special attention to providing you with accurate and useful information when it comes to your sleep quality.
After solving her personal sleep and tiredness problems, she is on to help others by sharing this invaluable information.
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