Regina is trying to challenge the idea that roadways and broken glass don't mix. It's planning to recycle glass by using it as a road-building material.

It's a case where necessity is the mother of invention. Last month, the only private company in Regina that had been collecting glass, Crown Shred and Recycling, decided to stop taking it.

That resulted in a stockpile of thousands of tonnes of the material at the landfill. 

The city wants to get rid of it, so it came up with the plan to have the glass ground up and mixed with roadbuilding materials.

According to Stella Madsen, City of Regina general manager of engineering and works, it's not an expensive project to set up.

"We expect it to be in the order of about $20 a tonne," she said. "That would put [the total cost of the project] in the order of $5,000."

Glass can be dropped off at three Loraas collection bins across the city: the Northgate, Victoria Square and Southland Malls.

It'll be shipped to a facility east of the city near Pilot Butte where it will be crushed, mixed with sand and gravel and sold back to Regina and other municipalities for road use.