You could be sitting on what used to be garbage.

A Manitoba business is turning unwanted used plastic into usable items, such as benches, planters and construction blocks.

“We can nail to it, we cut it, we can sand it, we can glue it, we can miter it,” Michelle Gowdar, chief operating officer of ReGen Composites, said about the product they create. “But this material is as strong as cement.”

Many people diligently put plastics in their blue bins, but there are still many items that are not accepted for recycling that contain plastic, such as coffee cups, bags, laptop shells and carpet pieces.

For ReGen Composites, those items are all valuable raw materials.

While the company can use any type of plastic, its focus is on things that can’t traditionally be recycled. That way, more garbage is kept out of landfills.

They don’t accept raw materials from individuals. ReGen gets its garbage from businesses, but right now the company already has a stockpile of raw material.

They also work in schools with Bag Up Manitoba, a program of Multi-Material Stewardship Manitoba and Take Pride Winnipeg.

Read the full and original article at CBC.ca