Sleep easy with VÅLFJÄLLET
There is no place like your own bed. But what happens to your much-loved mattress when its nights are over? Truthfully, mattresses are often incinerated or end up in a landfill. That’s why IKEA set out to design and produce VÅLFJÄLLET – our first mattress that has the potential to be completely separated and recycled where the infrastructure and technology exist.
We spend approximately one third of our lives sleeping (or, at least, attempting to get some shut eye). Finding the perfect mattress can be quite a task, but if you’re lucky, it’s a long and happy relationship. While testing different options, you may be thinking about firmness, comfort, and what sort of guarantee you’ll receive. Perhaps you’re wondering how on earth you’re going to get it home and into your apartment. Hopefully, you’re also considering what happens to it when it’s passed its sleep-by date. It’s this last question that got a team of self-proclaimed mattress-obsessed design engineers straight to work.
Mattress nerds, unite!
Robert Bauer Burton works as a Product Design Engineer where he leads the development of all kinds of projects related to sleep and comfort, constantly looking at new materials and techniques as well as cutting-edge processes and innovations. Designing a fully recyclable mattress didn’t come as a brief from the business, but out of the team’s own interest and desire to create something better. “We started by asking ourselves the question: what's the most sustainable mattress we could build today by accessing all the knowledge, know-how and materials we have both within IKEA and also with our development partners and suppliers?” says Rob. The result? The VÅLFJÄLLET spring mattress.
Rob zips up the cover of a VÅLFJÄLLET spring mattress.
Guided by the IKEA circular design principles
Mattresses are notoriously difficult to recycle. This has to do with the way they are manufactured and constructed – with many different materials, often glued to one another making separating without mixing materials extremely challenging.
The VÅLFJÄLLET cover is made from 100% recycled polyester and is fully removable – no glue to contend with and no cross contamination of materials. “You can just zip the removable cover off the mattress and recycle the full cover through local textile recycling systems, where they are available,” says Design Engineer Fanny Linander. The 100% recycled steel spring cores are covered in a non-woven polyester surrounding and polyester felt at the bottom. Even the glue holding the mattress core together is made from polyester! “This means the entire spring core can be sent through a shredder, where the steel is removed with magnets, leaving only polyester behind,” adds Fanny. The separated steel and polyester can then be processed into new raw materials.
The spring core of the VÅLFJÄLLET spring mattress.
“With VÅLFJÄLLET, the baseline always came back to our circular design principles. We needed to choose materials that would fit into a circular economy and construct the mattress in a way that would make it easily separable.”
Fanny Linander
Design Engineer
Where comfort meets convenience
While a lot of thought has gone into making VÅLFJÄLLET fully separable, its benefits don’t stop there. The spring mattress was developed to meet the same comfort and durability requirements as the rest of the IKEA mattress range. It comes in two comfort options, firm and mid-firm, and in two sizes, 80 cm and 90 cm, which can be combined into 160 cm or 180 cm. This means couples with different preferences can enjoy split comfort levels.
Because it’s customer assembled, it’s also significantly easier to transport, fitting happily into the back of a small city car. “The 180 cm VÅLFJÄLLET mattress comes in three rolls that are about 1 metre tall, with the largest having a diameter of 42 cm,” says Rob. “Customers can drive to an IKEA with their family and return home with a full double-sized mattress – a task which is usually rather difficult when it comes to standard mattresses of the same sizes!”
All three rolls fit easily into the boot of a car.
A pilot with purpose
For now, VÅLFJÄLLET can only be purchased in Norway, where it is being piloted for one year. While VÅLFJÄLLET is designed so that all materials can be separated, its recyclability is completely dependent on the technology and infrastructure available. Norway was chosen for the pilot because of its recycling infrastructure and culture. The findings from the pilot – focusing on how customers respond to the product and assembling the mattress themselves – will be used for future range development.
But while the innovative construction methods used for VÅLFJÄLLET are currently being tested, other mattress-related initiatives and improvements are already in production globally. Compared with its predecessor HÖVÅG, the VESTERÖY spring mattress is constructed with more springs and nearly 50 percent less foam, while maintaining the high level of quality for comfortable sleep. Since 2022, we have been working on a pilot with partners to close the loop by taking back discarded mattresses and sofas for new foam production.
And the innovations don't stop there! In terms of packaging, all IKEA mattresses come roll-packed, making them much easier to handle and transport.
“VÅLFJÄLLET is a big step for us. It offers separate comfort levels, easier transportation home, and straightforward assembly. And then after many years when it’s time to replace it, VÅLFJÄLLET can be fully separated and hopefully recycled meaning the recovered and recycled steel and polyester can eventually be turned into something new.”
Robert Bauer Burton
Product Design Engineer
Designing for tomorrow
VÅLFJÄLLET is an excellent example of how we are prolonging the lifespan of IKEA products and materials through applying the IKEA circular design principles and offering products and services that enable reuse, repair, refurbishing and recycling.