If you’ve been tossing your fingernail clippings into the trash, you might want to rethink that strategy. In China, fingernail clippings aren’t just gross leftovers — they’re actually used in traditional medicine.

For centuries, ground-up nail clippings have been believed to help treat everything from children’s stomach troubles to tonsillitis. Companies reportedly buy clippings from schools and villages, clean them up, dry them, and grind them into a powder that goes into various remedies.

Since the average person only grows about 100 grams of fingernails a year, demand often outweighs supply — meaning prices can be surprisingly high. One woman in Hebei even sold her lifelong stash online for about 150 yuan (that’s $21) per kilogram.

The practice slowed down in the 1960s thanks to the popularity of nail polish (nobody wants “tainted merchandise”), but now? It seems fingernails are making a comeback.

Oh, and before you ask: no, toenails are not accepted. Don’t even try.