What It Means When A Mattress Has A Yellow Tag

In the United States, mattress tags, commonly known as "law tags" or "do not remove" tags, are required by law to remain on mattresses during the selling process so they can provide necessary information to buyers. They typically include information on the mattress's manufacturer, whether it is brand new or recycled, and its specific materials and contents. When you see a yellow tag on a mattress, it means it contains used materials but has been sanitized.

Before mattress tags were made compulsory, virtually anything was fair game for manufacturers and sellers to fill a mattress so they could cut costs. This means buyers were exposed to all kinds of diseases and problems due to unsanitary mattress fillings and stopped purchasing such products when they knew what they contained. To combat this, sellers began to take off the tags right before the customers could see and consider buying the mattresses. This led to the Federal Trade Commission's Textile Products Identification Act which made it illegal to remove the tags.

Tags in white, yellow, or red are required to be on all mattresses so you know whether they're used or new. However, the type of information these tags contain varies with the color and the state. In California, for example, each yellow label is numbered and recorded in a logbook so it's easy to track every used mattress. Red tags show the materials contained and the amount. Yellow and red tags won't include the date the original mattress was produced or approved to be sold, so it's harder to tell the exact age.

The main law tag is white and confirms that it has completely new materials. It can show the product name, warranty information, what each filling material is, and what the materials weigh. It also contains a Uniform Registry Number (URN) and the name and address of "either the factory, importer, distributor or retailer" (via American Law Label). Some products need to also display the combined weight of the filling materials on the white tag.