TREX

Trex Company, Inc.

A maker of composite decking and railing, Trex builds outdoor living products from recycled plastic bags and reclaimed sawdust — the world's largest producer of wood-alternative decking. The idea began in the late 1980s when a breadcrumb manufacturer, Roger Wittenberg, shredded the plastic bags his product came in and mixed them with sawdust to solve his waste problem. Mobil Chemical bought the technology, and in 1996 the business was spun off as Trex, based in Winchester, Virginia. A typical deck holds roughly 140,000 recycled plastic bags.