North Bay is hosting a one-day recycling drop-off event Aug. 28 to help residents get rid of used mattresses and box springs.

The event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the North Bay Public Works yard through the Seymour Street entrance. Any sized mattress or box spring can be dropped off.

There will be a fee of $17 per piece. Cash, credit and debit will be accepted. The fee is used to offset the cost of the program, including shipping and processing.

"So far this year, the City of North Bay has diverted 2,600 mattresses and box springs from the landfill," said Victoria Thomas, the city’s environmental control officer.

“Although this is always something that we do, this allows people to save the trip going up there.”

The city’s Merrick Landfill site is located about 20 minutes north of the city and it ships out truckloads of mattresses and box springs for processing each year to a recycling depot in Quebec as part of the city’s mattress recycling program.

“If they didn't have a nice easy recycling option, they just get tossed in the bush, at the end of a road, which is a nuisance and an eyesore to a lot of people,” said North Bay Coun. Chris Mayne.

“As it turns out, we're recycling about 5,000 mattresses per year."

Since its inception in 2017, the program has diverted more than 20,000 mattresses from the landfill. The recycling program was prompted by a council presentation by students on a robotics team in 2016 that found that an estimated 100 mattresses, which are 100 per cent recyclable, were going to the landfill each month.