Spring Back Recycling shared The Tant Companies LLC's photo.Special thanks to Jason Tant and the The Tant Companies LLC for sharing our story!The Tant Companies LLCCheck out our latest blog post, an interview with Brennon Mobley of Nashville based, Spring Back Recycling. They are doing great work in our community! Nashville is one of the most vibrant cities in the country. We’re a community of people who take risks to pursue our dreams and who work hard to make those dreams a reality. For our city to remain the vibrant life-size music box that it is, though, we need to make sure we’re not risking our environment in our pursuit of bigger and better. Nashville recycling has come a long way in recent years. The city has made a huge effort to make recycling easier and more accessible to all residents and to provide more options for safely disposing of things that can’t be recycled. It’s because of those efforts that you can now find an alternative to the landfill for almost anything you need to get rid of.
In fact, our landfills no longer accept some things like electronics and appliances, due to the harmful substances they contain. So when in doubt, let this guide serve as your one-stop resource for where and how to dispose of anything and everything in the safest and most sustainable way. Automotive waste tends to be a pretty big waste category for any city and Nashville is no exception. This isn’t just a problem in terms of the amount of limited landfill space this type of waste takes up. One of the best things you can do for the health of our city is to ensure that you always dispose of automotive waste properly. Completing a home improvement project benefits your family by creating a more inviting or functional living space. It also benefits your community by contributing to a safe, pleasant neighborhood with good property values. But unless you’re properly disposing of all of your construction and remodeling debris, your home improvement project could be extremely detrimental to the environment.
Today, technology changes and becomes obsolete faster than ever before. This means that electronic waste is quickly becoming the largest waste category in cities throughout the nation. Aside from the sheer amount of landfill space it takes up, e-waste contains various metals and other materials that are toxic to the environment. As technology continues to advance, it’s more important than ever to keep electronics out of the landfill. “Household Items" is a broad category that includes many different types of materials. It’s also the category you deal with the most out of everything on this list. It’s also the category where it’s easiest to overlook alternatives to the landfill. After all, when you need to get rid of something large or obviously hazardous, you’re automatically prompted to look for other options. But the odds-and-ends that fill our junk drawers and cover our closet floors? It’s easy to throw them away without a second thought. But that doesn’t mean a second thought isn’t worth it.
There are plenty of options for disposing of these items that don’t require using up landfill space. Hopefully, this guide has provided you with Nashville recycling options for most of the junk in your trunk (and garages, sheds, closets and basements). But if you are left with some materials that just can't be recycled, you can consult this list of area landfills and transfer stations. 651 Amy Lynn Dr., Nashville, TN 37218 75 Trimble St., Nashville, TN 37210 700 Murfreesboro Pike, Nashville, TN 37210 3516 Central Pike, Hermitage, TN 37076 1428 Antioch Pike, Antioch, TN 37013 La Vergne Convenience Center 300 Sand Hill Rd., La Vergne, TN 37086 2791 Sams Creek Rd., Pegram, TN 37143 Plenty of businesses talk the talk about committing to more eco-friendly business practices, but not many really follow through. Luckily, there are some truly innovative companies in Nashville, not just walking the sustainability line but sprinting down it full tilt.
The Green Truck Moving Company goes the extra mile to reduce the waste and other environmental impacts associated with a move. The Green Truck powers its moving trucks with bio-diesel, gives customers the option of packing with reusable materials, recycles all of their customers’ leftover moving materials, and plants two trees after each move they complete. In short, when you work with The Green Truck, you can pat yourself on the back for the favor you’re doing the environment while somebody else handles all the hassle of moving for you! Southeast Green Roof provides an innovative solution to several problems associated with urban living. Southeast Green Roof installs green roof modules using native plants ideally suited to the environment of each individual building. With these carefully selected species in place, the building enjoys lower heating and cooling costs plus a unique and beautiful roof. Meanwhile, green roofs help take some of the burden off the city’s infrastructure by drinking up excess storm water.
They also keep things cool by helping to burst the “urban heat bubble" that causes a city to be several degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside. Hutton Hotel is Nashville’s greenest hot spot. From setting up shop in a disused office building, to using a laundry system that recycles and conserves heat and water, to implementing key cards that automatically turn off the lights when a guest leaves their room, Hutton Hotel is leading the eco-friendly pack in Nashville’s hospitality industry. Green principles inform everything that goes on at Hutton Hotel, in ways both large and small, proving every day that a truly sustainable business model is not just possible but profitable. If you’re looking to plan a Nashville trip with the least environmental impact this is the place for you.Spring Back Now Recycles What Landfills & Other Recyclers Don't Want: Mattresses TheGiantVermin/CC BY 1.0Ever think about what happens to an old mattress once you throw it away? Mattresses have plenty of materials that can be reused, but most recyclers don't want them.
Landfills don't like them either. They're bulky and don't really pack down. The springs can also get caught in machinery and cause extensive damage.Some folks in Tennessee saw this as an opportunity. Spring Back Recycling, a nonprofit, collects old mattresses and breaks them down into their usable parts, mainly cotton, metal, wood, and foam. , a mattress has about 10 to 25 pounds of foam, which is used to make carpet padding, and up to 25 pounds of steel. A steel-framed box spring has even more.Creating Much-Needed JobsBut Spring Back isn't just a recycling outfit: it's also a social enterprise. The recycling process requires a lot of manual labor; Spring Back employs previously-incarcerated and homeless men to do the work. They take apart a mattress and bundle the materials separately, which are then sold to scrap buyers in the area for reuse in other applications. Spring Back describes its mission as "building up lives while breaking down mattresses."NPR ran a story about Spring Back, and explained how the process works:Cutting into a mattress at Nashville's Spring Back workshop, Ron Harness runs his box cutter around a queen-size bed to fillet the fabric, in a process he admits is labor intensive.