We actively promote our recycling service to customers so they can responsibly dispose of their old mattress when their new one arrives. 1 in 5 of our customers currently do this.

Over 1.5 million items, including bed bases and frames, have been recycled since our customer take back program started in 2014. In 2023 alone, we helped customers to recycle 116,483 mattresses.

The springs, once separated from the mattress, are sent to be melted down into new light iron. The mattress is shredded and the mixed shredded fibre is turned into fuel pellets for energy and cement production.

All of our waste, across all our sites, is tracked, collected and reported by our recycling and waste management partner, Circom. This year we've increased the circularity of plastic packaging where 83% of all internal plastic packaging and plastic packaging collected from customers is recycled.

Recycling foam and mattress covers is a difficult task. Currently there is no commercial process to turn foam into something reusable and because mattress covers are made from mixed materials, it tends to be shredded and used for waste derived energy. Nonetheless, we are continuing to work with Circom towards our ambition that 100% of the waste that can be recycled, is recycled.

Over the past 12 months our company car fleet has moved from 66% hybrid/electric to 81%. We have increased our Electrical Vehicle chargers to 54 and introduced faster 22kw chargers as standard and rapid chargers at Bedquarters (our head office) and our Willenhall distribution hub.

Our vehicles cover 4.5 million miles a year, delivering to customers’ homes and transporting our product around the UK. Our route planning tool, helps us optimise our delivery schedules, reduces the number of miles we travel and increase the number of customer drops per van. Combined with our in-cab tracking, we measure how safe and efficient our drivers are, this results in more efficient route planning, a reduction in transport miles and any unnecessary vehicle mileage.

In 2022 we opened a new distribution hub in Willenhall, West Midlands. The central location will have a significant impact on the area we need to cover and will lead to a reduction in our mileage by 150,000 year on year.

We continue to roll out low energy lighting across our stores and offices. Since 2015, we have replaced 96% of all lighting across our sites with low energy LED bulbs that are around 50% more efficient. This helped us to reduce waste too, with the average LED bulb lifecycle being up to 5 times longer than other bulbs.

Through our partnership with SSE Green Electricity, we have worked hard to minimise our impact on the environment with a continued focus on energy efficiency. Since June 2021, 100% of the energy used across all of our 208 stores and 12 sites is from renewable electricity.

Dreams is the UK’s most loved bed retailer and a proud British business that makes the significant majority of its products at the Dreams’ Bed Factory in Oldbury, West Midlands.

Every year, Dreams manufacture 290,000 mattresses and over 200,000 divan bases and headboards, supporting the UK economy and local employment. Making much of our range right here in the UK significantly reduces the mileage our products have to travel and in turn, the carbon footprint from delivery.

In 2022, we switched all our plastic bag packaging to a material made from 54% renewable resources (a bio-based polymer made from sugar cane waste) and 30% recycled content. Not only is this sugar cane derived plastic 100% recyclable, but it also has a vastly reduced chemical content compared to standard 30% recycled content plastic. We don’t just stop there. Once Dreams deliver the customer’s items packaged in our sugar cane derived plastic bags, we take back the plastic packaging to be recycled again so it becomes yet another renewable plastic bag! Since the switch, Dreams Bed Factory uses over 171,000kgs of 100% recyclable plastic a year.