Tempur-Pedic is a nationally known brand name. They produce beds with a memory foam-like padding that contorts to the body. This is all well and good for those who like beds that do that. The downside is that for the environmentally conscious using a Tempur-Pedic mattress means sending financial support to a company that uses rubber foam. It might not seem like a lot but everything adds up. One extra person buying or using a rubber product they don’t need can do additional environmental damage. Residents of cities like Austin can only limit their environmental impact so much; they have to find small ways to make a difference.
Rubber requires a great deal of industrial production to become the product we use, every time you need to send something through a stage of chemical treatment or mechanical processing you create pollution. Rubber isn’t a clean substance either. It creates some rather nasty gases and chemicals when being processed. Rubber doesn’t biodegrade either. Instead it sits in the dumps taking up space and possibly preventing other things from degrading properly.
Rubber tires can at least be ground up to make an artificial soil on artificial turf fields. So we can find a use for it for parks and sporting venues. However, the rubber foam doesn’t have the proper consistency. Nor is the rubber foam in Tempur-Pedic beds as necessary for life as the rubber on tires are. You can avoid doing further damage to the environment though.
One option is to avoid foam style beds. They’re not for everyone to begin with so it might not be worth the investment for you to put down extra money on something that damages the economy and doesn’t help you sleep better. The other option would be to find more environmentally friendly foam beds, ones made with organic materials. Organic might not be the solution to everything, but it can help in certain cases. If you don’t want to sacrifice sleeping well you can instead get the good night of sleep you need without having to be responsible for extra environmental damage. Austin is a nice city to live in, and a fairly walkable one, but it’s still a city, you still work there and live there. Life cannot be faced without a good night’s sleep before. Getting that good night’s sleep doesn’t mean you have to give your money to a company like Tempur-Pedic that might do things you find morally questionable. If you’re environmentally concerned use the opportunity to look up the environmental effects of rubber production and how recyclable it is. Once you’re armed with information then you should make your decision.
