We spend approximately a third of our lifetime in bed sleeping. With that in mind, you want to make sure your environment is prime for good quality sleep. After all it’s the master control of our entire body’s system for healing and repair. Bad sleep, or lack there of, causes the brain and body to break down and age more rapidly. That being said, a good mattress is imperative. But making smart decisions about your bedroom doesn’t stop here.
Home is a place to feel safe and comfortable, recharge, love and feed your body and soul. I am an aesthete and interiors are extremely important to me. I am not only buying for functionality but for aesthetics and of course, as a health and environmentally conscious person, I do my best to keep my home as toxin-free as possible.
Indoor toxins can be really dangerous. 3.8 million deaths are attributed to household air pollution annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Indoor air pollutants include mold, building materials, home products, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and naturally occurring gases like radon.
According to the EPA, thousands of products release invisible gases, known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can cause all sorts of conditions such as eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, loss of coordination, and nausea. They can damage the central nervous system, liver and kidney, and some are suspected or known to cause cancer.
For example, it’s suspected that the polyurethane foam found in some mattresses is a source of VOC emissions. Made from ingredients derived from fossil fuels, polyurethane is highly combustible and therefore often treated with flame-retardants that have serious health and environmental impacts.
I don’t know about you, but it’s deeply unsettling to think I might be sleeping on a mattress made from such a material and god knows what else. For that reason I am very intrigued by a company called Avocado Green Mattress, that seems to be popping up everywhere in my world. I have seen ads and features in numerous places.
About Avocado Green Mattress
First of all they are a CERTIFIED B CORP. Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
Avocado’s organic certified mattresses are handmade in Los Angeles, California. They use the finest latex, cotton and wool, responsibly and sustainably sourced. No polyester, polyurethane foams, or toxic fire retardants are used. Each mattress comes with a 25-year warranty!
What’s also amazing is that their products, which not only consist of mattresses but also of toppers, bases, bedding such as pillows, protectors, sheets to bedroom furniture, have all trusted organic, non-toxic, ethical and ecological certifications you can think of to ensure safety for people and planet through fostering healthy indoor environments and promoting sustainability.
What to Look for When Shopping Sustainable Organic Mattresses or Textiles
You want to start paying attention to these certification labels when buying anything textile or home related. There are more certifications but these are a good start.
GOTS, The Global Organic Textile Standard is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain.
MADE SAFE® is a nontoxic seal for products we use every day, from baby to personal care to household and beyond. They certify that products you use on your body and in your home are made with safe ingredients not known or suspected to harm human health.
Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX labels and certificates confirm that every component of the article, i.e. every thread, button and other accessories, has been tested for harmful substances and that the article therefore is harmless in human ecological terms. In other words, it’s free from allergenic dyes, pesticides, chlorinated phenols, heavy metals, formaldehyde, and chloro-organic carriers, and are not harmful to the skin.
GOLS ORGANIC CERTIFIED: The Global Organic Latex Standard (GOLS) ensures that products contain more than 95% of certified organic raw material based on total weight. The GOLS standard features permissible limits for harmful substances, emissions test requirements, and polymer and filler percentages.
FSC CERTIFIED: The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)certification is considered the “gold standard” designation for wood harvested from forests that are responsibly managed, socially beneficial, environmentally conscious, and economically viable.
GREENGUARD Gold Certification are scientifically proven to meet some of the world’s most rigorous, third-party chemical emissions standards for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as formaldehyde or phthalates.
The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is a global not-for-profit organization and the largest cotton sustainability program in the world. GOTS is a higher standard, but BCI still makes global cotton production better for the people who produce it and better for the environment it grows with guidelines for production using less pesticides and water.
CLIMATE NEUTRAL CERTIFIED: Climate Neutral is an independent nonprofit organization working to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon world by putting a price on carbon emissions. With Climate Neutral, the entirety of our carbon footprint is measured and verified, from raw material production and shipping to manufacturing and delivery.
Other Organic Mattress Companies
Beware of ‘greenwashing’ when buying a mattress. If they don’t have any of the certifications labels above you can’t be certain, no matter how ‘green’ the brand professes to be. GOLS ORGANIC CERTIFIED, GOTS – The Global Organic Textile Standard and OEKO-TEX labels and certificates will be your best guides.
A mattress is an investment and if you currently not in the market for a new one, you can start to make smaller changes such as getting a mattress topper that is made from naturally non-toxic and 100% certified organic materials. I love toppers, it’s like sleeping on a cloud. Or start with non-toxic organic sheets (in section below).
Other trustworthy sustainable and organic mattress companies are My Green Mattress, Naturepedic and Saatva. But there are many more.
Pillows
Look for non-toxic pillows made of 100% certified organic materials, after-all you put your head down onto these things with your nose right on it. Avocado, My Green Mattress, Naturepedic and Saatva carry bedding, so you can get them right there.
Sheets
Buy 100% organic sustainable sheets that have at least one of the certification labels mentioned above. GOTS, The Global Organic Textile Standard is your North Star here. There are many companies with great sustainable options to choose from. All of the companies we have introduced above sell sheets, too.
I personally have Fair Trade Certified SOL Organics sateen sheets and I absolutely love them! Another company that uses earth-friendly fabrics and manufacturing methods to create more sustainable products, from first sketch to last stitch and beyond is Buffy. Their sheets are made of eucalyptus fabric, which supposedly is more breathable than cotton and softer than linen. They also sell hemp sheets.
Another company that sells non-toxic hemp sheets is Delilah Home. Hemp is biodegradable and requires about half the amount of water than cotton to grow.
Recycle Your Mattress
According to Mattress Recycling Council more than 50,000 mattresses are discarded in the U.S. every day, most of them illegally and they end up in a landfill. More than 80% of a mattress can be recycled into new consumer and industrial products. With your help, less will end up in a landfill and are diverted from the waste stream.
You can find your closest recycling facility at Bye Bye Mattress.
*Ad Vitam is not affiliated with any of the recommended brands, nor is this a paid ad.
