By JOHN HOWELL

As soon as this May, Rhode Islanders will no longer have to pay to dispose of mattresses, hopefully bringing to an end the unsightly practice of dropping them off at used clothing bins even though they are unwanted – or worse, dumping them along a stretch of back road.

Under the program developed by the Mattress Recycling Council (MRC), 15 Rhode Island municipalities will host the placement of containers where people can leave unwanted mattresses starting as soon as May 1. The MRC is in discussions with an additional seven communities about opening collection sites.

According to Sarah Reeves, director of public policy, programs and planning at Rhode Island Resource Recovery, the state’s landfill operation expects to see a two-thirds reduction in its processing of mattresses. Presently, it is recycling about 38,000 mattresses a year.

“Delightfully, it is going to remove a lot of responsibility,” Reeves said of the program being run by MRC, a non-profit corporation created by the mattress industry in response to legislation requiring a system for the disposal of mattresses.

Rhode Island is the third state in the country, behind Connecticut and California, where MRC is implementing a program. In the case of Rhode Island, $10 of every mattress or box spring sold in the state will flow into the MRC.

Although the fee will help fund the program in the future, there will be no charge to drop off a mattress at any of the municipal collection locations, said Amanda Wall, marketing and communications coordinator at the Alexandria, Virginia-based MRC.

“We’ll accept it if it was bought 20 years ago, it doesn’t make a difference,” she said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Under the program, Ace, located in West Warwick, and Express Mattress in Rumford will break down the mattresses to recover the recyclable material. Another company will collect the mattresses from the municipal drop-off points.

In fact, Wall said, if mattresses are dropped off at either of the companies performing the recycling, people will be paid $2 per mattress or box spring. Recyclables recovered from mattresses include steel, wood, foam and fiber, she said. Wall said she hopes the program will inspire people to collect mattresses dumped alongside roads and in vacant lots.

Mayor Scott Avedisian said yesterday that the central collection point in Warwick would be at the Public Works garage and be restricted to residents.

“This innovative recycling programs will allow the city to again offer a means of mattress disposal. This is better for the environment and will end the practice of having people dump mattresses and box springs in locations that make the city look run down and ugly,” Avedisian said in a statement.

Several years ago, when Resource Recovery instituted a charge for handling mattresses, the city chose not to collect mattress as part of heavy trash pickups. To have included mattresses in material brought to the state would have incurred a $50 fee per mattress. While the city could have offered a drop-off program, which would have segregated mattresses at a lower cost, it chose not to do so.

Avedisian thanked DPW director David Picozzi and recycling coordinator Chris Beneduce “for their work with the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation on all of the logistics for this program.”

Currently, Resource Recovery charges $15 for people dropping off mattresses at its facilities.

Reeves said with the start of the program on May 1 that fee would be dropped. However, she said, Resource Recovery would continue to charge $50 for mattresses that can’t be recycled.