Public Funding for Furniture Resource Centre Limited

Almost 20 million people are without sufficient income to afford essential items like beds and this means there are over 400,000 children without their own bed in the UK. As part of their mission to End Furniture Poverty, FRC Group designed, developed and launched the first automated mattress machine, UltraClean 1.0 - named through an FRC staff competition as "Mattilda". This world-first machine processes up to 20 mattresses per hour using automation and a sophisticated digital cloud-connected control system, meaning huge volumes of mattresses can be given a new and extended life. Mattresses are restored to extremely high cleanliness levels through a multi-stage process of: dry-vacuuming; pre-spray; steam cleaning and vacuum; ozone saturation; high-power UV bath; and rapid drying. This is great news for the environment too. Every mattress which is reused saves 79.5 kg of CO2 which is the equivalent of taking 14 cars off the road for a day. UltraCleaned mattresses are donated directly to people in furniture poverty and given to reuse charities who sell them at a low cost in their communities. With the UltraClean 2.0 project, Furniture Resource Centre will build on the success of the world's first mattress cleaning machine, putting Liverpool City Region at the core of a national rollout of advanced mattress cleaning systems with global ambition -- simultaneously addressing a notoriously challenging waste stream and the lack of affordable furniture for people in poverty.