- In 2025, the circular economy pioneer, BRANTNER green solutions, and the foam specialist, NEVEON, founded the joint venture LOOP-it with the aim of recycling End-of-Life mattresses.
- When the company was founded, the goal was to find a sustainable way to recycle old foam that had previously been incinerated. The company is now taking stock of its operations to date.
Vienna/Krems, July 08, 2026. LOOP-it, Austria’s first mattress recycling company, now processes up to 500 mattresses – equivalent to around seven tonnes per working day – at its facility in Oberwölbling (St. Pölten District/Austria). On an annual basis, this amounts to a capacity of 110,000 mattresses, including several metric tons of valuable secondary raw materials. Roughly 80 percent of the material is now reused instead of being incinerated. While burning a 14-kg mattress produces an average of 26.47 kg of CO2, the recycling process emits only 3.42 kg of CO2. This corresponds to a reduction of 23.05 kg of CO2 – or approximately 87 percent of CO2 emissions – per mattress. The CO2 footprint was calculated in collaboration with ClimatePartner.
LOOP-it is thus filling an important gap in the circular economy: more than one million mattresses are disposed of in Austria each year. Most of this number still ends up being incinerated, even though mattresses contain valuable materials such as polyurethane foam, latex, and metals. At the same time, thermal recovery generates significant CO2 emissions. This is exactly where LOOP-it comes in, transforming a linear waste stream into a new raw material cycle.
“With LOOP-it, we’re demonstrating that a circular economy is technologically feasible, even for complex products like mattresses. From the very beginning, our goal was to tap into an entirely new stream of materials for recycling, and we have now finally succeeded in doing so on an industrial scale. “This also helps us bolster Lower Austria as an industrial hub,” explains Jernej Hren, Managing Director of LOOP-it GmbH and Group Innovation Officer at BRANTNER.
“The goal of LOOP-it is to keep valuable raw materials in circulation, and to actively help shape the future of our industry. We want to show that a circular economy is not only environmentally sound, but can also be economically successful. However, this can only be achieved if all stakeholders along the value chain work together. “That’s exactly why we’re laying the groundwork with LOOP-it,” adds Michael Bednarek, Managing Director of LOOP-it GmbH and Transformation Manager at NEVEON.
AI supports the recycling process
The facility relies on modern technologies and automation. Artificial intelligence is used to optimize operational processes and analyze materials with precision. On average, a mattress weighs 14 kg. The recycled materials recovered in this process form the basis for both mechanical and chemical recycling and, in future, can help reduce the consumption of (and dependence on) fossil raw materials in production. The compressed bales of material weigh approximately 350 kg for polyurethane and 460 kg for latex.
A pioneering role without a legal obligation
One particularly noteworthy detail: Austria currently does not have a mandatory Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR system) in the form of a fee for manufacturers placing mattresses on the market, i.e., a levy through which manufacturers finance the subsequent collection and recycling of mattresses. Nevertheless, BRANTNER green solutions and NEVEON have already established and put their own recycling infrastructure into operation. This makes LOOP-it a pioneer in the Austrian market.
With the successful launch of this facility, LOOP-it is combining innovative technology, the circular economy, and industrial partnerships to create new solutions for previously unsolved environmental problems.
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