DTER, short for "design & territory," is a French company that mates industrial waste with designers. They learn what materials manufacturers get rid of, then commission designers to turn that waste into something useful.

One of DTER's pairings yielded this SAI 39 bench, by French industrial designer Robin Bourgeois:

I'd never seen industrial waste that looked quite like that, and couldn't figure out what the heck they once were. DTER explains:

"The company from which the materials come manufactures corrugated cardboard boxes. It controls the entire value chain, from the supply of paper to the transformation of cardboard through the recovery of scraps which are then recycled. However, its production tools, worn or decommissioned, are not recycled."

"Among these tools, the half-cylinders used for cutting cardboard boxes must be replaced regularly: these consumables, considered waste by the company, are the raw material for the SAI 39 bench. The scrap has already lived its first life from a few years to more than twenty, as a cardboard stamping tool."

"These are openwork wooden tiles, in which steel blades and pieces of foam of various qualities have been fixed. These blades allow you to cut or create a fold on the cardboard. The foams, for their part, allow the cardboard to be pushed back once pressing has been carried out. Each tile therefore offers a particular cutting pattern, corresponding to a specific packaging box. Two tiles are needed to make a single bench."

The benches retail for €825 (USD $888).