Josh Costa was working at the Chittenden County Solid Waste District in 2020 when he started a small junk removal business. He found that he had to pay $20 to $40 to dispose of mattresses in the state’s only landfill, located in Coventry.
“So I’d rip them up and make it not look like a mattress,” Costa said. “I’d bring the metal to the metal yard and I’d put the foam in a bag and no one knew it was a mattress.”
He discovered there was a market for the foam and the toppers. They sell for 1 cent to 25 cents a pound, he said. He declined to reveal to who he sells them. He gives the wood, which is untreated white pine, to the Burlington Electric Department’s McNeil Generation Station to burn as fuel and sells the steel springs to All Metals Recycling, in Williston.
So he started a business breaking up and recycling mattresses, working with a 2,500-square-foot warehouse and a box cutter, he said.
Chittenden County Solid Waste District now trucks all its mattresses — about four truckloads a week — to his business, Sleep Well Recycling in Burlington, he said. He also counts Northwest Solid Waste District as a customer, along with hotels, colleges, furniture stores and residential customers.
Over the last three years, he said, Sleep Well Recycling has recycled 30,000 mattresses.
Costa is one of 15 founders of eight startups selected for mentoring this year at LaunchVT, the business accelerator of the Lake Champlain Chamber.
Costa said he is looking for help in figuring out whether to focus on growing or improving his processes to bring in more revenue. He sees great potential in recycling mattresses, as other states, such as California and Massachusetts, are now requiring that mattresses be recycled because they take up so much space in landfills.
For the first time, most of the eight startups in the group are from outside Chittenden County, said Lauren Bass, director of LaunchVT.
“We are lifting people up from all sorts of different communities,” Bass said.
LOGIC Building Systems in Brattleboro, founded by architect Jason Van Nest and business partner Jim Verzino, makes modular kitchens and bathrooms for multifamily buildings.
“There’s a major pain point in multifamily construction where you get to the bathrooms and the kitchens, because there’s so many components that go into them and you need one person who does the plumbing and another person who does tiling and it becomes very complicated, cost-intensive,” Bass said. “Solves a big problem for developers.”
PurplCouch in Vergennes, founded by Sarah Lyman, a communications professional, is a resource for couples getting separated or divorced. Lyman plans to offer an online registry for couples breaking up.
“You need to replace the toaster and you need to replace the TV and and you need a new dining table and you might have a ton of friends who want to come to your help and they don’t know how to do it,” Bass said. “You can have an online registry for your divorce needs so you can have stuff replaced.”
Tacitly, in Rutland, founded by Jeff Dejarnette, Bill Kuker and Luke Kosby, is a virtual reality platform to train traveling nurses in hospitals. It provides virtual-reality crash carts, like the ones used in emergency departments and other parts of a hospital when patients need urgent lifesaving measures. The traveling nurses can use the virtual-reality crash carts to become acquainted with the configurations of crash carts in each hospital.
“Whenever a hospital does a training on a crash cart, it occupies a crash cart, so they have a piece of equipment that isn’t really being used for its main purpose,” Bass said.
DandyLion, in Starksboro, founded by Ashley Farland, repurposes leftover materials from high-end men’s suit makers into pillows and other soft goods for the home.
“It’s just beautiful,” Bass said.
DandyLion also makes sustainably sourced accessories out of wood, ceramic and glass.
“Think of really high-end cutting boards and items for the home, like salad bowls,” Bass said.
QOR360 in Burlington, founded by Turner Osler, a doctor, and his son Lex, makes ergonomic chairs.
Plink!, in Burlington and Richmond, founded by Max Luthy and Luke Montgomery-Smith, makes tablets that can be dropped in water and are slightly effervescent and carry electrolytes, making fizzy flavored soft drinks.
“It’s not rocket science,” said Luthy. “Kool Aid was doing this in 1927. Gatorade was doing it in 1965.”
Plink! Is sold online and at Healthy Living. Luthy said the company is just starting to work with City Market and Outdoor Gear Exchange and will soon be at Ski Rack, Shelburne Market and Richmond Market.
“They taste awesome,” Bass said. “You can bring your Plink! tablets with you on the go, toss one into your bottle when you take a break from being on the trails.”
But Luthy said the company is also going after households that don’t necessarily do triathlons.
“Plink! is the hydration product that you look forward to consuming,” Luthy said. “It tastes good.”
Dairy Dirt, in Starksboro, Springfield and Chester, founded by Brendan O’Brien, Ryan Lau and Michael Curtis, makes a nutrient-rich grass seed covering, using dairy cattle waste from anaerobic digesters.
“I see a very good opportunity for them to get out of their beachhead market of Vermont, northern New York, New Hampshire,” said Bass.
Between now June, the founders will get coaching remotely and at Hula, the business incubator space in Burlington. On June 20, they will take part in a contest, pitching their businesses to investors and a general audience at Hula.
Startups selected for the program in past years include Resonant Link, Bivo and Sloggn.
Corrections: A previous version of this story incorrectly described Sarah Lyman’s profession, omitted one of the founders of Tacitly, and did not fully describe PurplCouch.
