Employment, environment and 1,500 tons of trash

by Joey Besl | January 22, 2019

Jeff Jewett, B.A. Psychology '06, and his wife Jenny, own Spring Back Utah Mattress Recycling, which provides jobs for people with barriers to employment in the Salt Lake City area.

At Spring Back Utah, a supportive mattress means something much different.

Owned by Jeff Jewett '06 and his wife Jenny, the mattress recycling company provides jobs for people with barriers to employment, such as a history of addiction, homelessness or incarceration, or are facing a new reality as an international refugee in Utah.

No matter why any member of his staff needs a fresh start, Jeff said, "employment is a key step in restoring that hope and dignity that I think we all ultimately want and desire."

Part of a national network, Spring Back Utah offers a second chance for its staff - that's something especially important for Jeff, who found his own second chance at UAA (more on that later).

Bundles of shoddy cloth, a mattress component frequently reused by moving companies.

But Spring Back Utah isn't just about employment. Along the way, the company also keeps more than a million cubic feet of waste from reaching the landfill each year, weighing nearly 1,500 tons. These recycled mattresses have a mission, to benefit people and the planet alike.

Since opening in 2014, Jeff and Jenny's business has increased nearly 50 percent each year, including 28,557 mattresses recycled in the last 12 months. Donations arrive from large partners like retailers, hospitals, hotels and dorms, as well as individual homes. Donors pay a small fee for the service, and each extra mattress increases employment opportunities.

When there's a position to fill, Jeff and Jenny reach out to community partners for recommendations, including rescue missions, rehab centers and sheriff's offices.

The recycling jobs at Spring Back are manually intensive - loading mattresses in delivery vans, for example, or slicing and separating each donation with a utility knife - but these tasks fit well with the company's mission. Once trained, Jeff said, "regardless of their background, [anyone] can do this job and do it well."

Inside Spring Back Utah's mattress-stacked warehouse on the westside of Salt Lake City, Jeff's staff dismantles each donation into component parts. The felt cloth layers are reused in moving trucks to protect furniture and crates. The foam and pillow top layers find new homes as carpet pads. Springs and coils become rebar in Utah roads, while wood from box springs gets chipped for fill or furnace fuel.

All told, about 95 percent of every mattress is recycled.

A Spring Back Utah employee dismantles a donated mattress.

When Jeff graduated with a psychology degree in 2006, he didn't foresee becoming a magnanimous mattress magnate. But, he said, "I use [my degree] all the time.

"In order for our guys to realize their potential and to keep moving forward in their lives, so much of it is about recognizing past behaviors," he said. "Your past doesn't dictate your future."

Coming from Jeff, that's not simply a feel-good pep talk. It's his life experience, too.

Jeff is open about his struggles with alcohol, which culminated in a collision while intoxicated, causing minor injuries in the other vehicle (everyone fully recovered). That DUI charge during college, he said, "was just a huge eyeopener." He withdrew from the rest of the semester after the incident.

"[I realized] that the way I was living was not productive, it was actually self-destructive," he noted. When he returned to UAA, "I was starting from the ground level up with really everything I knew."

He found new friends, reconnected with family and faith, and completely reassessed his college goals. The DUI charge closed the door on his air traffic control major, but his renewed interest in behavior and influences led him to psychology.

"To be able to continue my education in the midst of working through this legal challenge, and working through the struggles with alcohol that I'd had, it was absolutely a gift," he said of the second chance UAA offered. "Being able to stay in school, stay enrolled in the midst of my imperfectness, and continue forward, I don't take that for granted."

Stacks of mattresses in the Salt Lake City warehouse.

Jeff brings that perspective to his job every day. Spring Back Utah's mission, ultimately, is to provide support and encouragement to each employee on an individualized basis, and usually at a time when people need it most. Outside of work, he also serves as director of mentoring at Stone of Hope Youth, which offers leadership camps and academic scholarships for disadvantaged students around Salt Lake City.

"I wasn't able to continue to walk forward in my life without people around me," he continued. "Sometimes it just takes pausing and looking at our own lives to [see] I had a lot of people come along side me on the way to spur me along."

The best aspect of his work, Jeff said, is being part of a solution, and offering that same support.

A Spring Back Utah moves mattresses in the warehouse.

After nearly five years in business, the Jewetts are just getting started. They currently operate at 25 percent capacity, but the opportunities for encouragement, employment and the environment will increase as the stacks of mattresses climb higher. There are millions of mattresses across Utah, and that simple fact motivates Jeff to continue building statewide connections.

"We're able to see just countless stories of redemption and people really rewriting a different story," he said of his experience with Spring Back Utah.

Want to help? If you live anywhere in Utah and want to donate, visit springbackutah.com.

Not in Utah? Spring Back also operates in Charlotte, Nashville, Tacoma and Denver. Click here to learn more about Spring Back's national program and mission.