In this film, we see the story of 1,5 million mattresses, depicted on those mattresses. Every year, in the Netherlands alone, 1,5 million mattresses are thrown out. Most of them end up in landfills, or the incinerator, causing massive environmental damage. Few people are aware of this.

That is why we collected many hundreds of mattresses from the streets and took them to a warehouse turned studio. Here, we hand-painted and photographed them to form the frames of the stop-motion animation: the story of 1.5 million mattresses. (Of course, we used the same eco-friendly water based dye that is used in all of our hand-made mattresses..)

We also made a making-of, showing all the love and attention that went into this experimental endeavor.

Discarding old mattresses has become so common around the world, you hardly notice them on the streets. Yet mattresses are a serious source of pollution. This is an invisible problem no one really likes to talk about.

Consumers feel it is up to the manufacturers and government to handle recycling. Manufacturers claim their products are being recycled, when really they are downcycled at best. Meaning they are shredded into stuffing, and later still end up in garbage heaps and incinerators.

In fact, throwing away old mattresses every ten years or so is an integral part of the (old) business model. And on the whole, the industry is offering mattresses at lower and lower prices, making it more and more attractive for consumers to choose cheaper alternatives to sustainable mattresses.

And as long as no one is aware of a problem, no one lies awake at night.