I am searching for the least toxic mattress available. What do you think of Keetsa’s green tea memory foam mattress or Foamite’s soy foam? Is there such a thing as truly “natural” latex?
[rssbreak]I’ve always wondered why more people don’t loiter in mattress shops. Seriously, what other store can you just walk into, lie down for 20 minutes and not buy anything?
Of course, if you’re worried about toxins, mattress stores might not be the best place to linger. Traditional polyurethane mattresses off-gas all sorts of air-polluting volatile organic compounds, even if the big brands have thankfully given up using super-persistent flame retardants.
But what about memory foam? How could it be toxic if everybody in Sweden is sleeping on a Tempur-Pedic? (At least that’s what marketers imply.)
Truth is, that “special” visco-elastic foam is really just plain old petroleum-based polyurethane with mysterious density-boosting chemicals added to the mix. And all that polyurethane means smoggy lung- and skin-irritating VOCs are off-gassing as the mattress hugs your body.
These VOCs supposedly dissipate over time, and North American brands also insist they don’t use the flame retardants I alluded to earlier, PBDEs, that can be in cheap imports.
Some manufacturers, like SleepLevel, tell you their particular brand of memory foam (Biogreen) is VOC-free, but they remain suspiciously hush-hush about what it’s made of. Come on – you’re spending a third of your life sleeping on the thing, you want to know what you’re lying on.
Perhaps the biggest greenwashing BS is being pushed by brands that claim their memory foam is made of crunchy-granola health food store ingredients like soy or green tea.
Dig a little deeper and you’ll see that they’re only 5 to 20 per cent veggie-based and the rest is the usual polyurethane fill. Keetsa’s green tea memory foam mattresses are a perfect example. The company’s Bio-Foam-brand memory foam replaces a piddly 12 per cent of the usual petroleum oil with castor bean oil. And the “calming” green tea component? That’s just added as a deodorizer.
It’s basically the same story for the so-called “natural Aerus memory foam” mattress available at Wal-Mart and others. Sure, it comes with a nice bamboo cover, but its maker, Foamex, won’t tell you how much of the fill is actually from “renewable sources.”
Canadian-made Foamite has better numbers: its Koosh Hybrid beds are made with soy foam that’s actually about 60 per cent soy. But don’t get those confused with many of Foamite’s mattresses that are plain old regular memory foam.
Foamite does offer all-natural latex beds (but they’re not memory-foam products), and Keetsa has some options with a natural latex core. True natural latex beds rock because they’re durable and naturally mould-free. But not all latex comes from the sap of rubber trees. In fact, a good proportion of “latex” products are fakes (made of petroleum-based rubber and plastics), and many are blends.
To confuse things even more, you might see pillows and beds marketed as Talalay or denser Dunlop latex. Neither is a type of latex, but a way of processing it. It could be all synthetic, a blend of synthetic and natural latex (like Natura’s Aloe Dream Mate Pillow) or in rarer cases all natural (like Natura’s Organic Dream Mate). You’ll never know unless you press for details, so call the manufacturer and ask.
There is one Canadian memory foam bed that’s totally natural, by the way. Handmade in Montreal, Essentia beds are 100 per cent natural latex whipped into a froth, then set in a mould, without VOCs, chemicals or toxic glues (myessentia.com from $2,165 for a queen).
There are also plenty of natural latex beds that aren’t memory foam. Ottawa-made Obasan is considered a top-of-the-line purist. Its latex is made of 97 per cent pure milk (rubber tree sap) stabilized with zinc oxide as a bonding agent. Obasan’s beds all come with 100 per cent certified organic cotton and naturally flame-retardant, moisture- controlling wool batting (obasan.ca). The manufacturer also sells similar beds through somasleep.ca, greensleep.ca and Grassroots from $2,375 for a queen).
Bottom line is, truly green mattresses made without cheap petroleum inputs in a sweatshop-free setting will cost you. You can save a grand if you choose a “natural” latex mattress encased in conventional cotton and wool. (Sealy makes some, though most just have a latex topper).
You’re in for the biggest price tag cut with Ikea’s Sultan Heidal bed. It’s actually made with latex that’s 85 per cent natural, organic cotton, a wool topper and some corn-based fabric (only $999 for a queen).
It all comes down to which bed lets you sleep nightmare-free.
