While some plastic and wood products are difficult to recycle, they’re finding a recent life at ReGen Composites.
The Winnipeg-based company is using their technology to take items like clam shell plastics, coffee cups, plastic bags and zip-lock bags and turning them into products like benches and constructing blocks.
“We have now been making a way that we are able to take material that traditionally has gone to landfill and we’re diverting it,” Chief Operating Officer Michelle Gowdar said.
The corporate uses local waste from their industrial partners, and while they’re a comparatively recent business, they’ve already expanded their operations. Gowdar said they processed 2,000 kilos of raw material once they first opened, but are actually in a position to handle 80,000 kilos.
“There’s not enough being made out of those materials to be making a dent or a difference. Corporations like our company have to return into existence because someone needs to begin using that material to create things out of it or we are going to proceed to have this overflow of plastic.”
Beyond increasing capability locally, the business can be expanding into other markets. Gowdar said they will probably be opening manufacturing operations in Toronto and three more in the USA over the following eight to 10 months.
“Once we began investigating the quantity of plastics that were out on the planet we were shocked. And after we began the numbers which might be utilized in the home, the industry and what’s going to the landfill, there’s nowhere for these items to go.”
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Other firms are also attempting to cash-in on recycled materials.
Wood Anchor has a partnership with the City of Winnipeg where they re-purpose trees infected with Dutch Elm Disease, crafting them into custom furniture.
“We follow specific rules and regulations by town and the province to be able to process the Elm to be utilized in furniture, flooring, mill work , art pieces — absolutely anything,” Shop Manager and Lead Designer Kellen Deighton said.
“We are inclined to work with the fabric and showcase the natural characteristics of the materials and diverting these trees from just becoming firewood.”
Town removed about 9,000 elm trees as a result of Dutch Elm Disease in 2018.
