Are yoga mats recyclable in Australia?
The answer is yes… but it’s complicated… and unfortunately expensive.
The definition of a recyclable product is one that can be collected, processed, and manufactured into new products after they have been used[1].
In theory, yoga mats in Australia fit that definition.
In practice however, the complexities and costs associated with properly recycling yoga mats in Australia are so significant that only a tiny fraction of pre-loved mats are actually recycled.
Where the complexity starts…
It all begins with the materials that yoga mats are made from. Yoga mats can be made from either biodegradable[2] or non-biodegradable materials[3] and sometimes they’re made from a mixture of both.
If a yoga mat is made from a biodegradable material then these can be disposed of, according to "Samove", by simply putting these mats into your personal compost bin[4]. Cutting your mat up into smaller pieces will speed-up decomposition.
If a yoga mat is landfill-biodegradable, it means that when that yoga mat reaches landfill, it will biodegrade in those landfill conditions, where there is warmth, darkness, pressure and moisture.
Here is an image of the landfill-biodegradable material that the yoga mat I developed (The Pure Mat™) is made from, decomposing in soil in lab tests:
If a yoga mat is made from a non-biodegradable material, it makes the mat difficult to recycle, as these materials contain potentially hazardous chemicals such as phthalates and lead, which require specialised people and equipment.
These types of specialised people and equipment are not found in regular recycling facilities – meaning that the recycling facility that recycles your household milk bottles and newspapers, is not equipped to recycle yoga mats.
As such, local councils refuse to accept yoga mats for recycling – meaning that used yoga mats (those that can’t be gifted away or upcycled into gardening knee pads or dog shelter bedding) end up in general rubbish bins, destined for landfill. And once these non-biodegradable yoga mats find themselves in landfill, they take vastly many more years than biodegradable yoga mats to decompose.
So what if you don’t want your old yoga mat contributing to landfill? What if you’d like to properly recycle it?
There is an option.
Often, when I sell my yoga mats wholesale to a yoga studio, they ask what they can do with their old mats. I wanted to provide a clear, informed answer, which began this whole deep dive into the complexities of yoga mat recycling in Australia.
Through my research, I discovered TerraCycle, a Sydney-based company that has become a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle materials. TerraCycle sells 'Zero Waste Boxes'—I purchase one of these boxes, fill it with used non-biodegradable yoga mats that people send to me and that aren't accepted by their local curbside recycling service, and send these old yoga mats back to TerraCycle. TerraCycle then uses specialised people and equipment to process these items into new products. Specifically, old yoga mats are shredded into small pieces, converted into pellets, and then sent to manufacturers who use these pellets to create new soft surfacing for Australian playgrounds and sports pitches.
The downside?
It’s the cost. To purchase a Zero Waste Box which fits 5 yoga mats costs AUD$213, which when broken down means it costs $42 to responsibly recycle just one yoga mat. And, to confirm, that $42 cost is shouldered by the person who buys the TerraCycle box. TerraCycle keeps a small fraction of that $42 cost (they are a privately owned company after all, trying to run a sustainable business model – staff need to be paid, marketing needs to be done etc etc) and the rest goes to the specialised people and plants that recycle these traditionally hard-to-recycle items.
So that’s the hard truth about responsibly recycling yoga mats in Australia – it can be done, and good companies like TerraCycle are stepping in. But the cost of recycling is expensive and the number of people willing to pay $42 to recycle their old yoga mat are in the minority rather than majority.
How I decided to help
Around a year ago I made the decision to buy Zero Waste Boxes from TerraCycle and to cover my customer’s costs for recycling their old mat. When anyone buys one of my yoga mats, they can send me their old yoga mat, which I place in a Zero Waste Box and when the box is full I send that box back to TerraCycle who go on to recycle those yoga mats into soft surfacing for Australian playgrounds and sports pitches. More information on this can be found here.
In summary…
It’s clear that it’s hard for good-intentioned people to properly recycle their old non-biodegradable yoga mats. But there are solutions:
You can send your old yoga mat to me and I’ll cover your cost for TerraCycle to responsibly recycle your mat for you.
Or, rather than buying a non-biodegradable yoga mat in the first place, you can buy a biodegradable yoga mat. That way, when you no longer need your mat, you don’t even need to worry about recycling it – you can simply send it to landfill where it will biodegrade.
Australia offers some great landfill-biodegradable, earth-friendly yoga mats – any yoga mat made from 100% PER, cork, jute or natural rubber will biodegrade (just make sure the company has conducted 3rd party lab studies confirming this - as I did - with the landfill-biodegradable yoga mat that I developed).
I agree that the topic of recycling yoga mats in Australia is one fraught with difficulty but there are solutions, the most important one of which, I think, is to try to buy eco-friendly products to begin with, with biodegradability in mind, so that you can manage the disposal of products within your own home.
Andrea x
[1] https://www.epa.gov/recycle/recycling-basics-and-benefits#:~:text=Recyclable%20product%20%2D%20Products%20that%20can,after%20they%20have%20been%20used.
[2] These are yoga mats made from PER, Jute, Cork, Cotton or Natural Rubber
[3] These are yoga mats made from PVC, TPE, EVA or NBR
[4] https://samove.raa.com.au/recycling-a-z/
