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The prestigious MRW National Recycling Awards are the top awards in the recycling and resource management sector, with winning projects and teams recognised for their achievements within the industry.
FRC Group’s UltraClean mattress cleaning machine was crowned winner of the ‘Innovation – systems and technology’ award at a glittering ceremony held at London Hilton Hotel on Park Lane.
FRC Group, who have a mission as a social enterprise to End Furniture Poverty, designed the ‘UltraClean Mattress Machine’ to prolong the life of mattresses which can then be reused by those living in furniture poverty. It is the first automated mattress cleaning machine in the world and delivers high quality, clean and fresh mattresses, giving them a new and extended life. This means good as new, clean mattresses can make their way to those in need as quickly as possible, or even be returned to accommodation providers for ongoing use rather than buying new mattresses.
Shaun Doran, CEO at FRC Group said: “We are absolutely delighted to be awarded this prestigious accolade. We are always looking at ways to reuse items of furniture to help those in need and in designing and developing the UltraClean Mattress Machine, FRC Group have created a new technology and business model that will result in a positive environmental impact as mattresses move up the waste hierarchy, and at the same time help make a difference in our mission as a social enterprise to End Furniture Poverty. We congratulate all finalists and are thrilled to have won the award.”
Juliette Bauccio, Reuse Leader at FRC added: “Almost 20 million people are without sufficient income to afford essential items like beds and this means there are over 400,000 children without their own bed in the UK. We had already commenced a manual mattress cleaning programme to treat unwanted, great quality mattresses which was very time and labour intensive. As an innovative company we wanted to develop the optimum solution to deliver high quality, clean and fresh mattresses to those most in need so designed, developed and launched the first automated mattress UltraClean machine.”
The seven stage UltraClean process ensures high quality, pre-loved mattresses, which may have been destined for landfill or broken down into parts for recycling, are UltraCleaned to remove odours, stains, bacteria, viruses, mould, mildew, and bed bugs and fleas.
The mattresses are restored to extremely high cleanliness levels and good as new. This is great news for the environment too. Every mattress which is reused saves 79.5 kg of CO2 which is the equivalent of taking 14 cars off the road for a day.
