Recyclable emergency mattress for festivals, refugees and disaster relief

After most music festivals, the festival ground looks like a huge landfill full of abandoned camping gear and broken air mattresses. Designer and entrepreneur – and former DJ – Sam Ninaber van Eijben wanted to change that and developed a fully recyclable emergency air mattress solution. Today, the Red Cross is one of the largest customers, because not only festival visitors but also refugees and other displaced people now sleep on this mattress in emergency accommodation.

In 2018, Sam contributed to the development of a sustainable festival tent to reduce the amount of waste left behind after events. Festival visitors were not very interested in that solution. At the same time, he noticed that a large part of the waste mountain consisted of air beds, often made from PVC and difficult to recycle. He found out that around ten million people spend at least one night at a festival every year and that 20 to 25 percent of them leave camping equipment behind that is not recycled.

Sam decided that this had to change and defined a clear goal: create a sustainable festival mattress that can be recycled in a relatively simple way. “We started from zero; there was nothing available on the market. Quite quickly we realised that an air mattress would be the most efficient option. With an air mattress, the volume is created by air and you do not need a bed frame or legs, which makes it very effective. It also has to be easy and fast to inflate and it has to be affordable. That is how we arrived at the technology that we later optimised. The first idea came when we once received oversized boxes filled with inflated plastic cushions as protective packaging. We lay down on them and they were surprisingly comfortable. That was the basis of our idea.”

Creating OOMPH Industries and the Zzz Mattress

To bring this idea to life, the company OOMPH Industries was founded. The name stands for stylish impact and practical innovation. The recyclable air mattresses were given the name Zzz, a direct reference to sleep and rest. The founders of OOMPH believe that entrepreneurs, the young generation and designers should take the lead in making the world a better and more sustainable place. OOMPH approaches this mission in a pragmatic way: “We cannot improve the world without any emissions at all. That is why we focus on products and situations with the highest impact on our planet and try to influence those in a positive way. As industrial designers, we work closely with manufacturers to enable positive change within the industry. We do not solve everything, but we help move the transition forward. We look for a better way, a better material and a better production method,” says Ninaber van Eijben.

Deposit system and large-scale festival testing

Sam and his colleagues then started looking for producers of the plastic cushion material that would form the core of the mattress. They held many discussions with manufacturers across Europe. “Who owns the intellectual property in this sector? How is the production process organised? What can we claim, and how can we protect our technology? We had to figure all of that out. Eventually we found a producer we had a strong connection with, and together we continued the development. We are still working with this partner today.”

Once the product was ready, OOMPH contacted organisers of major festivals such as Lowlands and Awakenings. At these events, shops were set up where visitors could buy the air mattress as a service, using a deposit-return system. After the festival, visitors returned the mattress, so the material could be collected and recycled. “We definitely had enough mattresses for our first festival. We could not order small quantities of film, the material the mattresses are made from. The minimum order was 50 kilometres of film. You can produce a lot of mattresses from that,” Sam explains.

During the first festivals where the recyclable mattresses were sold, Sam and his colleagues remained on call by phone day and night. If anything went wrong, the festival team could contact them immediately. They did not receive a single call. “That is when we knew we had done a good job,” says Ninaber van Eijben.

The first versions of the mattress were carbon black, later light blue with small printed clouds, but OOMPH has moved away from those designs. “Now they are all dark blue, almost purple. We believe this is a calming and neutral colour. We carried out extensive research into colour, both from a user-experience perspective and from a production perspective. We want to understand how people respond to different colours and what colour pigments do in the production process and in combination with other components,” he explains.

European innovation and local supply chain

Over time, the emergency mattress has been continuously refined and optimised. Especially in the early years, the quality improvements were significant. “That is why it is so important for us to work with local partners who produce the film material. We strongly believe in European innovation. Having a manufacturer close by allows us to react very quickly. Lead times are short and we have built strong and long-term relationships. Another important advantage is that we can reach any of our partners within a day. If a supplier or producer calls me in the morning because something is wrong, I can be on site before the end of the shift. That speed means we can manage quality and innovation very closely. If you had to fly to China every time, you simply would not do it,” says Sam.

He continues: “We prefer suppliers in the region, especially because this makes it easier to scale up quickly when demand increases.” When production is located far away, goods may spend weeks on a ship and communication has to take place via video calls. For OOMPH, this model does not work well. Local production makes collaboration, quality control and scaling much easier.

The production of the recyclable mattresses runs on existing machines in factories that also produce other products, 24 hours per day and all year round. No specialised equipment is needed for the Soku Minute Mattress and the Zzz Mattress. “This enables our partners to deliver very high output. We have made clear agreements that if demand suddenly becomes very high, we can scale up quickly and produce large quantities. At the same time, we always try to keep some mattresses in stock as a buffer for disaster relief and emergency situations,” explains Sam.

From festival mattress to Soku Minute Mattress for emergency accommodation

Today, the target group for OOMPH and the Soku Minute Mattress is much broader than just festival visitors. Municipalities, emergency aid organisations, airports, reception centres, temporary shelters and hospitals have become important customers and now account for a larger share of demand than the festival market. For these professional customers, the mattress is sold under the name Soku Minute Mattress, an emergency mattress that can be deployed very quickly in large numbers. To reach these organisations, OOMPH regularly exhibits at trade fairs to identify which parties were interested in innovative emergency bedding solutions.

“The big advantage is that we were able to test our recyclable mattresses extensively in the harsh environment of music festivals. A festival is a tough setting for any air mattress: heavy use, dirt and rough handling. In a disaster or emergency situation, where mattresses are needed for affected people, you do not have the option to experiment. The product has to work,” says Ninaber van Eijben.

According to him, Soku currently has very little direct competition. Other suppliers mostly offer camp beds and foam mattresses, which take up much more space in storage and transport than the inflatable Soku Minute Mattress. “Camp beds also require more manual labour to assemble and disassemble. Storage and logistics are more complex as well. In emergencies, there is often a lack of manpower, storage space and time. Those are exactly the factors where our emergency mattress solution can make a difference, because we can respond and deliver very quickly,” he explains.

The Soku Minute Mattress is delivered with a specially developed inflator that automatically inflates the mattresses from the roll at very high speed. The Red Cross is now one of the largest customers for this emergency bedding solution. In the past, setting up sleeping accommodation required a truck and a team of volunteers. Now one person with a passenger car can deliver and install a large number of sleeping places. “That person can make the situation more humane and more bearable in a very short time. The Red Cross maintains its own stock of mattresses and inflators. We always stay in close contact with our customers and regularly visit them for conversations and feedback. Only by listening closely can you continue to innovate,” says Sam.

Next steps: More impact and more people off the ground

When asked about the next step for OOMPH and Soku, Ninaber van Eijben is clear: “Growth. Creating more impact. Getting more people off the ground with a safe and comfortable emergency mattress. We are currently selling globally and building a distribution and dealer network. The partners in this network will support local customers and understand local needs. They will also collect feedback on specific requirements in each region. We cannot define all those needs ourselves from one central office. That is why we want a network that knows exactly what customers in each area expect from our products. That is what we are working very hard on right now.”

When it comes to possible new products for emergency bedding or temporary shelter, Sam prefers to stay discreet for now. “If we have a good idea, we do not want to take the risk that we cannot protect the intellectual property properly. In that case, we might have to cancel the project. There are many factors in product development that can work against you, and we are prepared to kill our darlings if necessary. So we will not talk about new concepts until they are truly ready,” he concludes.

Source: Nuance nr 37
Original text in Dutch by: Mariëtte Baks
Photography: Erik de Brouwer