Bob will talk mattresses, not the politics of mattresses

When city, state and federal officials gathered in Bridgeport today to celebrate the grand opening of Park City Green, a nonprofit mattress recycler, client Bob Kaufman was on hand.

You might not immediately recognize the name, but as Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch noted, anyone who watches television should recognize the bearded face of the owner of Bob’s Discount Furniture.

So Kaufman, who has a store in downtown Bridgeport, has volunteered to become one of Park City Green’s first clients and send them a couple trucks of used mattresses a week for disposal.

When you purchase a mattress from Bob’s, his company hauls away the old one. But until now Kaufman said his only options have been shipping them to a landfill or to a recycler in Illinois.

“I think this is a great prototype for the rest of the country to become more regionalized,” said Kaufman.

I asked where he stood on a proposed bill that would have made Connecticut the first state to require all mattress producers and sellers to be responsible for picking up and recycling used mattresses. The idea is to take that costly responsibility away from municipalities and also cut down on the amount of debris piling up in landfills.

The legislation died during the recently concluded session but state Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Daniel Esty, who was also present for the Park City Green event, said he hoped to revive the measure in 2013.

Kaufman said he is often asked to take positions on different issues and avoids doing so. That includes any talk of mattress regulations.

“I want to sell furniture to both Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

Brian Lockhart