In my green please post last Monday, I mentioned that I was going to investigate the carbon footprint of a mattress made of natural rubber vs a more traditional innerspring mattress made from organic cotton and wool. My objective was to come up with the same type of comparison table as I did for carbon fiber and aluminum bicycle frames.

For as comprehensive a tool as Carnegie Mellon University's Green Design Institute Economic Input-Output Lifecycle Assessment Tool is, I could not generate the data I was hoping for. Organically produced materials were nowhere to be found, not even in the custom product builder. Instead, I resorted to the old-fashioned approach of contacting mattress manufacturers directly to learn what I could about the production and transportation of "green" mattresses.

Here's what I learned from the folks at Savvy Rest and Suite Sleep:

• Natural rubber comes from third world countries and is minimally processed before it is shipped to Canada or the US to be made into mattresses. Other than the transportation involved, my best guess is that the greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of natural rubber mattresses are negligible.

• On the other hand, the manufacturing of organic wool and cotton mattresses involves steel spring manufacturing as well as machinery to harvest the cotton. My assumption, however, is that the transportation of materials to factories and on to the consumer make up the bulk of the greenhouse gas emissions involved in manufacturing innerspring mattresses made from organic cotton and wool.

• Savvy Rest uses natural rubber from India, while Suite Sleep uses natural rubber from Malaysia. Savvy Rest only makes natural rubber mattresses, while Suite Sleep also produces more traditional innerspring mattresses.

• Components for Suite Sleep's innerspring mattresses come from China (steel springs), Peru (organic cotton) and The Netherlands (organic wool). All of Suite Sleep's mattresses are manufactured in Canada.

• Savvy Rest mattresses are manufactured in North Carolina.

Bottom line: I have no doubt that the greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing of either natural rubber mattresses or organic cotton and wool innerspring mattresses are significantly less than the greenhouse gas emissions from traditional mattress manufacturing.

On the surface, it would appear that the greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing natural rubber mattresses may be less than the greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing organic cotton and wool innerspring mattresses–simply because the components for the innerspring mattress originate from so many different places.

My recommendation to the folks at the Murie Center will be to purchase natural rubber mattresses.

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