2 minute read
YOUR GREEN MATTRESS
Over the course of a lifetime, the average person spends about 26 years (9,490 days) sleeping, not to mention seven years trying to get to sleep. That’s a total of 33 years in bed and a good reason to care about mattresses.
Discussions about healthy sleeping habits often center around when and how long people sleep. That makes it easy to gloss over the importance of what people sleep on. Comfort is undoubtedly essential, and some people prefer firmer mattresses while others favor softer ones. But nobody prefers a mattress that emits noxious chemicals.
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Polyurethane, flame retardants and plastics commonly found in mattresses are known to release gaseous chemicals, according to health news syndicator HealthDay. Body heat could play a role in releasing those chemicals while sleeping. The chemical emissions often remain below levels that harm most people, but anyone with sensitivities to them is left looking for alternatives.
Leading the charge to revolutionize the mattress industry are companies like My Green Mattress, which produce and sell organic mattresses.
Tim Masters, the company’s founder, has been in the organic mattress business since 2007, long enough to see his business grow and his direct competitors proliferate. He made his first all-natural mattress for his daughter, who suffered from eczema and allergies, and then turned the idea into a fullscale, family-owned business.
“The organic market has really taken off,” Masters told Luckbox. “It’s just become popularized as of maybe 2016, 2017, so in the last four or five years.”
Masters hoped at the beginning of 2020 for an 8% to 10% annual growth rate. But despite the pandemic, My Green Mattress was ahead 24% in the fourth quarter of 2020—a figure he said made him a slowcomer compared with his friends in the industry.
But what makes organic mattresses, which Masters estimates account for anywhere from 8% to 10% of all mattress sales, different? In the case of My Green Mattress, it means they were made in a GOTS (see right) and GOLS certified factory, often considered the gold standards for guaranteeing a product is organic.
Manufacturers achieve certification for GOTS, or the Global Organic Textile Standard, when an on-site inspection by an independent certification body determines an entire textile supply chain—from processing to trade—meets the ecological and social criteria.
GOLS, or the Global Organic Latex Standard, certification mandates that organic latex and finished latex foam must contain a minimum of 95% certified organic raw material by weight.
Together, the certifications help give consumers peace of mind that the mattresses they purchase are truly made with organic materials. My Green Mattress supplies a variety of organic mattresses, from hybrid and spring-free to latex-free and crib mattresses. And with so many quarantining students and workers using mattresses as desks and office chairs, the desire to reduce exposure to chemicals may usher in a new era for the organic mattress industry.
