DULUTH, Minn. — A Duluth company came up with a new approach to an old problem — how to recycle mattresses that take up space in landfills. Olaf Industries developed a coil compactor to crush the steel coils into a form that can be recycled into other steel products.

Now Olaf Industries has licensed the technology to an Australian company.

The Minnesota company’s founder, Clint Deraas, tells the Duluth News Tribune (http://bit.ly/YFX08Y ) the Australian government has been pushing companies there to begin recycling old mattresses to recover valuable materials and save space in landfills.

So far Deraas has sold only one of its machines, to Goodwill Industries in Duluth, which has been using it for three years.

Forty million mattresses and box springs are thrown out every year in the United States.