Hi Taylorajay,
I agree that’s a good idea with any mattress although it can take some research to know what claims need to be verified or which questions to ask.
I was referring to comments made about Berkeley Ergonomics that I’ve seen in a number of places around the internet (not just one) that were clearly made by someone that was on a personal vendetta against Berkeley Ergonomics and for the most part were exaggerated, misleading, and overly critical. To me they appeared to be from a competitor that had an agenda to harm the reputation of a good manufacturer. My guess is that the website you referred to was probably from the same person although I don’t know that for certain. They certainly seem to have a “thing” against polypropylene and against BE.
While I certainly don’t have the time to go through it all … I don’t mind making some comments about a few of the statements they make.
They don’t make any claims about having an organic mattress and this implies that they do. Someone that doesn’t know this and only reads the website you linked could easily think that BE is claiming to have an organic mattress and would already be predisposed towards having a negative opinion about them.
The cover uses certified organic cotton and certified organic wool so the raw materials themselves have an organic certification even though the cover itself isn’t certified organic as a final product after manufacturing. For 99% of consumers knowing that the “ingredients” were certified organic would be enough and it’s very unlikely that they would even be aware that there are different levels of organic certifications … or even care.
As I mentioned they seem to have something against polypropylene which is a completely safe material and is used in the fabric that encases the pocket coils. To me this would be a non issue although this is much of the basis for their criticisms. They have always been open about this for those customers that are concerned enough to ask about the type of fabric that covers the coils (see post #4 here as an example).
They have never claimed that it was. There is no Talalay latex that has an organic certification but it does have an Oeko-tex certification and a C2C certification as well (see post #2 here). Again this is very misleading because an unwary consumer may believe that they are claiming that their latex is organic when they aren’t.
[quote]Turns out that the Berkeley Ergonomics coil mattresses contain a LOT of synthetic Polypropylene.
The Polypropylene covers all the springs in the mattress. It is not a small amount that could be missed. [/quote]
This is a complete exaggeration because the fabric that covers the springs is a very small percentage of the whole mattress.
[quote]The latex in my Berkeley Ergo coil mattress also contains 23 chemicals. 22 of the chemicals deemed “moderately problematic, but acceptable for use”, and one chemical deemed “unknown”. You can view the
2-page Material Health Certificate for the latex used in my bed here.[/quote]
This is also completely misleading since none of the chemicals are harmful and their comments come from a misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the C2C certification (which is most likely done on purpose so that once again the people that read their site are predisposed to think negatively about BE). Radium that makes their Talalay latex deserves credit for the time and effort it took to achieve the C2C certification and not criticism. You can read much more about this in post #13 here and the rest of the topic which discussed this extensively.
I could go on but it’s really not worth it since it’s clear to me that they are just “out to get” Berkeley Ergonomics for their own personal reasons and agenda and their website and the similar comments they have made around the web have very little credibility.
Berkeley Ergonomics is among the most transparent manufacturers in the industry and it’s a shame that a single person with an obvious agenda and that is probably a competitor can “spray” unfounded criticisms all over the web and have that big an impact on the well deserved reputation of a good quality and reputable manufacturer that they even merit a reply in the BE Q&A section on their site (see the “what about the bad reviews” section).
Phoenix