NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — When the USS Enterprise returns home from its final deployment, one of the first items that will be stripped from the aircraft carrier will be the thousands of mattresses its sailors have worn out over the past few years.

But unlike other ships the Navy has decommissioned, these mattresses won’t be heading to a local landfill following the Dec. 1 inactivation. The Navy will send the mattresses to a company in South Carolina as part of a pilot program to break the mattresses down and recycle their springs and foam for other uses. The Navy says paying Pamplico, S.C.-based Nine Lives Mattress Recycling to take the Enterprise’s mattresses off their hands is about $12,000 cheaper than paying for them to go to a local landfill.

“It had to be cheaper, even if it’s greener, in order for us to want to do business,” said Gregory Jeanguenat, Naval Station Norfolk’s Integrated Solid Waste and Recycling Site manager.

The Enterprise will be the third Navy ship to have its mattresses recycled as part of the program, which was inspired by similar programs in the Army. The amphibious transport dock USS Mesa Verde and the aircraft carrier USS Abraham

Lincoln had mattresses ready for disposal removed in the past few weeks. Removing the Lincoln’s mattresses was a particular accomplishment because aircraft carriers are the Navy’s largest ships, with more than 6,000 sailors on board.

In all, 13,000 shipboard mattresses are being recycled under the pilot program, saving more than 100,000 cubic feet of space in a landfill.

“It’s my pride and joy. I’m absolutely excited that this happened,” Jeanguenat said. “It’s the largest chunk of mattress recycling in the U.S. military.”

Jeanguenat hopes the program will expand to other ships, barracks and Navy hotels in the area. In southeast Virginia, which is home to the world’s largest naval base, the Navy buys about 25,000 new mattresses a year.