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The Berkeley Ergonomic coil mattresses sold at Design Sleep contain a lot of the synthetic material Polypropylene, but oddly they don’t acknowledge the Polypropylene on their web site even though they describe all the other components in great detail. I wonder why the Polypropylene is not being mentioned.
You can see the Polypropylene for yourself as it covers all the springs in the mattresses. It is not a small amount. On one page of Design Sleeps web site, they refer to the Polypropylene as ‘coil fabric’, but I wonder why they do not use the term Polypropylene like the manufacture does.
Design Sleeps web site explains all the many benefits of the mattresses and their components, so I can’t help wonder why they don’t share all the benefits of the Polypropylene too.
I checked the web sites of many of the other Berkeley Ergonomic dealers in the USA and was surprised to see that none of their sites mention the Polypropylene either. Why are these dealers not acknowledging the Polypropylene? This is very odd to me.
I also could not help notice that Design Sleep uses the phrase “Organic mattress” on their web site a few times. Are they referring to the Berkeley Ergonomics mattresses? If so, I’m not sure that’s proper. I’m pretty sure an “organic mattress” can’t contain so much synthetic Polypropylene and I think there may be other requirements.
Our post has nothing to do with 'certification' and you didn't address the question/confusion at all. Do you want to re-read it?
Why don't you acknowledge (and praise) the Polypropylene on your site like you do all the OTHER components?
And why do you call the Polypropylene 'coil fabric'? Why not call it Polypropylene like the manufacture does on their web site?
And which of our mattresses are 'organic mattresses'?
Huh?
Again, my question is still not answered. I will try asking it again;
Why is the Polypropylene NOT acknowledged on the web site even though all the other mattress components are described, and praised, in great detail?
Its really a simple question.
PS-I have no connection to the mattress industry in any way.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
It sounds like you may have a personal vendetta against Berkeley Ergonomics, or someone is paying for a smear campaign. There are dozens of mattress manufacturers and mattress retailers who are not 100% clear in their marketing materials. When you were sold your $3000 mattress, your sales person showed you how to unzip the mattress to view all the components.
Your fight should be with your American government. You should be asking the FTC to mandate clear labelling laws on organic and natural goods. If they did this, we'd find ourselves in a situation where there would be ZERO organic mattresses. Why? Because latex shouldn't be labelled as organic. It's not. The rubber tree milk might have come from an organic tree farm, but the finished product is man-made, and it isn't pure rubber tree milk in a foam state. It needs a binding agent, and that agent is not more rubber tree milk. Berkeley Ergonomics provides demonstrators of their mattresses. The PP content is clearly visible and on display, front and center. Also, every mattress they make, with exception of a couple of entry level models, have a zipper. You can open the mattress and see the content. You can't do that with a lot of organic beds. There are 3 organic mattress makers that do not pass the federal flammability requirements and have gamed the system to only pass on prototype. In addition, 1 organic mattress maker that uses a synthetic material to pass flammability, yet they still market their mattresses as entirely organic. The synthetic material isn't even on their law label.
Everyone that calls their latex organic is actually bending things quite a bit. It takes 7 years to get organic certification at the agricultural level (7 years of zero chemical herbicide/pesticide use). We're technically only at year 4 on this. So the actual certificate is a transitional certificate issued by GOLS. It's not full organic certification. 1 organic mattress maker that uses styrene and butadiene in their foam formulation (these are both petro chemicals derivatives and also VOC's)
Would you prefer there selling point be "German parallel pocket coils made of recycled 99% purity steel sourced within the EU, not sourced from China, wrapped in polypropylene, which is made in Germany and is a high performance synthetic fabric which is also used in the medical industry for vital procedures such as sutures and artificial vascular grafts".
Anyway, you sound like you might be working for some other "organic" mattress maker. That's fine, but in the interest of transparency you may wish to disclose your angle :)
We could also pick on another "organic" maker while we're at it. Their mattresses are made in a "certified organic manufacturing facility" and yet their springs are wrapped in polypropylene and their crib mattresses are finished with PLA, which is a plastic fibre from a plant source. But, still plastic. Nature doesn't care what the source is, plastic is plastic :)
The prime focus in our mattress design is function and performance not organic certification. While all our materials are certified chemically safe, mostly natural and some are certified organic we use polypropylene for our pocketed coil material because it performs better than cotton which is the only natural material available.
PP is quick drying which is important to prevent the growth of mold and bacteria inside your mattress. It is very quiet and does not make crunchy noises when you move in bed. It allows the hot-melt (solvent free) glue to bond tightly to it to prevent separation of the rows of coils guaranteeing exceptional durability.
As with everything else in life the right balance has to be struck between natural and functional and we believe that the earth is better served by a bed that has a long and well-performing life span compared to a 100% natural design where some components are of a lesser functionality and the bed has to be replaced in a much shorter time-span.
Our nonwoven polypropylene is a chemically safe material that has been developed over 50 years ago and since been widely used for all kinds of everyday applications (food packaging, clothing, carpets, etc. It has been used for pocketed coils for decades and proven to work extremely well.