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Comment by tenpies | Hacker News Reader

I'm also somewhat suspicious that foam mattresses are quite bad for your health, not necessarily from a sleep mechanics perspective, but from an air quality one. I mean you are literally sleeping on a piece of plastic that is optimized for surface area. You then squish it constantly while using it and inhale those aerosolized plastic particles for about 8 hours per day.

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There are latex foam mattresses. I've purchased two from Sleep on Latex (sleeponlatex.com, or Pure Green on Amazon).

That said, whether latex, polyurethane, or whatever, with foam mattresses you're supposed to use a mattress protector to prevent sweat and accidents from soiling the foam. Alternatively or in addition to that, Sleep on Latex uses a wool topper, as I'm sure many other brands do. And then on top of that most people use sheets. I would think all of that covering would trap any particles so they can conveniently be washed out to sea with all the other microplastics from the laundry.

Unfortunately while off-gassing is a legitimate concern (particularly in poorly ventilated rooms) it is harder and harder to avoid, as spring mattresses now also often contain one or several layers of foam.

I'd like to see some high quality research on this using realistic test environments, or even monitoring in actual bedrooms. I don't know who is willing to fund that though.

Ofgassing in the first few weeks or so may expose you to harmful chemicals, but I don't see any reason for foam the to degrade into fine particulate if it isn't exposed to UV, assuming it isn't made of total garbage.

Everything we touch/eat is plastic/comes in contact with plastic to some degree, your shoes, clothes, bread sits in plastic for days, vegetables for months, etc.

I really doubt a bed wrapped in some form of cloth is any worse.

Unless you live on mars you are most likely getting ten times more pollution/plastic from other areas then your foam mattress.

Mattresses have been sprayed with flame retardants for decades. Supposedly, many of these new-age foam ones don't contain them.

I paid a little extra (~$600) for a foam mattress manufactured in California. I figured there is a lower chance of harmful offgassing than the cheaper Chinese mattresses like Zinus. I don't have any way to test that though.

Kind of makes a used one seem like a better idea...

Wow I never thought about this

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