An independently owned cannabis store in St. Catharines, Ontario, believes it has found a partial solution to the growing amount of trash created in the booming new industry. The Niagara Herbalist has started paying customers for their empty cannabis packages with store credits, styled after similar programs offering cash for empty alcohol containers. One of the goals is to divert waste that would have ended up in landfills. The store is offering customers a store credit of 10 Canadian cents (8 U.S. cents) for glass jars or bottles and CA$0.05 for plastic jars and other recyclable outer-packaging, including cardboard containers and plastic pre-roll or vaporizer containers. Used vape cartridges and vape batteries are not part of this program, which launched Nov. 15. While recycling programs aren’t new – Canopy Growth and TerraCycle launched a nationwide program in 2019 – this is believed to be the first time a cannabis store is offering financial compensation for empty packaging. “Cannabis packaging is a problem. Right from Day One, there’s been so much of it,” Niagara Herbalist co-owner Kevin Trethowan told MJBizDaily in a phone interview. He said the buyback program is a year-and-a-half in the making, and Niagara College’s Environmental Management and Assessment program helped get it going. The program also accepts plastics that cannot be recycled, then looks for ways to repurpose them. “The problem is that so many of the products in the cannabis industry, not all of them are recyclable. Some of the plastics may look like they can be recycled, but they can’t,” Trethowan said. “So what happens is, customers put all of these products (packaging) into their recycling bin, and when they get to the facility for sorting, you have tons of products which can’t be recycled. “It adds time and cost for those people to re-sort those products, and all of the containers that can’t be recycled go into a landfill.” The addition of a buyback element like that of The Beer Store is what sets this program up for success, The Niagara Herbalist says, because it offers that extra incentive. “People deserve to be rewarded for taking steps towards living more sustainably, and we’re trying to do our part by taking on the costs of compensating our customers for their initiative,” The Niagara Herbalist co-owner Jessica Bonilla said in a statement. Health Canada does not track the amount of packaging used in the nation’s cannabis industry. Industry sources, however, have put the number at more than 10,000 tons. Additionally, roughly 6 million packages of finished cannabis products were destroyed by licensed producers from 2018 through 2020.

This April, recycling and upcycling are key trends in cannabis-packaging sustainability. In-dispensary recycling programs are emerging and evolving, and one packaging supplier has launched cannabis packaging made from reclaimed ocean waste.

The hashish business has a waste disposal drawback. Whether or not it’s gnarly solvents used within the manufacturing course of or leftover biomass that should be destroyed or additional packaging required to make merchandise not possible for a kid (or an in any other case competent stoner) to open, authorized hashish creates a whole lot of waste. Tons of it. It’s appalling how a lot packaging is used to promote a number of authorized buds. A Canadian Broadcasting Firm report steered {that a} gram of weed offered at a licensed storefront in Canada, the place a authorized hashish business opened its doorways in 2018, can produce near 100 grams of packaging waste. The issue of extra hashish waste is rooted within the legacy of criminalization that now manifests as pointless overregulation. Paradoxically, hashish overregulation is producing an enormous quantity of additional rubbish. It doesn’t should be that means.

Plastic Packaging

Single-use packaging could also be the obvious drawback of waste for shoppers. Stroll down a sidewalk close to a hashish dispensary in Los Angeles or Seattle and also you’re more likely to see small plastic tubes and tamper-proof luggage which are far bigger than the gadgets they as soon as held. A principal intent behind single-use packaging is to extra tightly monitor and management the plant’s sale, but it surely has created an infinite drawback of extreme waste, with as little as one gram or a single pre-rolled joint meriting its personal plastic container. The issue of extra hashish waste is rooted within the legacy of criminalization that now manifests as pointless overregulation. Hashish overregulation is producing an enormous quantity of additional rubbish. Figures supplied by Headset, a hashish data-analytics firm, point out that 32.5 million “models” of hashish prerolls had been offered in California in 2020. (A unit, on this case, may imply a single preroll in a plastic tube or as many as 10-20 prerolls in a carton.) And 53.6 million packets of free, manicured bud in childproof containers had been additionally offered final yr within the Golden State. The outsized plastic packaging for these “models” typically finally ends up as road litter or as refuse in a rubbish dump. States which have legalized hashish require every product to incorporate a considerable amount of labeling, similar to well being warnings, identification numbers, soil and different crop manufacturing inputs, in addition to testing data and cannabinoid composition. Due to these labeling necessities, “packages find yourself being considerably bigger than the precise product requires,” in accordance with a June 2020 report printed within the Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal, and most of it’s destined for a landfill. “The most important drawback with packaging and labeling are the quite a few laws that end in additional packaging getting used to suit all the things on the product,” the Regulation Journal notes. Colorado regulators just lately adopted new rules that make it considerably simpler for hashish shoppers to recycle their stash-related trash. Dispensaries within the Centennial State at the moment are allowed to supply packaging receptacles of their lobbies. In January 2021, the Airfield Supply Co., a hashish dispensary based mostly in San Jose, CA, carried out an identical recycling program. However that is the exception, not the rule. Owing to the present patchwork of legalization regimes, there’s no central authority monitoring hashish waste in most states, not to mention throughout the US. California, for example, has three separate state businesses with their very own waste administration laws for various elements of the hashish manufacturing course of. And Canada doesn’t observe hashish waste packaging in any respect.

Enterprise Alternatives

A handful of startups have recognized the big waste drawback as a inexperienced enterprise alternative. Ron Basak-Smith, one of many younger entrepreneurs behind Sana Packaging, spoke with Undertaking CBD about his firm’s efforts to develop one of many few manufacturers based mostly solely on sustainable packaging for hashish merchandise. He and his accomplice James Eicher, each current enterprise faculty graduates, are utilizing hemp, reclaimed ocean plastic, and different non-petroleum-based supplies to create a closed-loop enterprise mannequin that generates no waste, with their packaging materials both recycled into additional use (for nonbiodegradable plastics) or discarded in a means that doesn’t speed up air pollution. If hashish producers are utilizing regenerative agricultural practices to domesticate their merchandise, they want to consider issues like packaging as an extension of that. The mannequin relies on the Ellen MacArthur Basis’s definition of a “Circular Economy,” which goals to design waste and air pollution out of the economic system whereas preserving supplies in fixed use and serving to to regenerate pure programs. To this point, Basak-Smith says, Sana Packaging has labored with 370 clients, largely within the US with a handful in Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. “If [cannabis producers] are utilizing regenerative agricultural practices to domesticate their merchandise, they want to consider issues like packaging as an extension of that,” says Basak-Smith. “You don’t need a disconnect between producer and shopper on the level of sale due to unsustainable packaging. It’s all a part of an even bigger image.” One other enterprise on the precipice of improvements in hashish packaging is Sungrown, an Oakland-based packaging firm that works instantly with clients to design sustainable, customized packaging manufactured from fully compostable supplies. In line with the corporate’s web site, its “printing course of makes use of water-based coatings and soy-based inks and we’re proud to supply our supplies domestically.” PolyCanna, a Colorado-based enterprise, emphasizes hemp-sourced sustainable packaging choices, in addition to inventive recycling and upcycling methods for mitigating cannabis-related waste. “The principle focus proper now, PolyCanna CEO Tyler Sofa advised Ganjapreneur, “is to search out viable options for the single-use oil-based plastic that the business at the moment has whereas we combine bioplastics. The trick is discovering a means for single use plastic to by no means attain to ocean or landfills within the first place.”

Voluminous Vapes

Because the business evolves, new types of hashish consumption will doubtless necessitate new methods  to package deal and correctly eliminate waste. Vape cartridges are a first-rate instance of one thing few imagined can be a difficulty a decade in the past, however now poses a problem for sustainability advocates. In 2019, CannaCraft, Inc., a serious hashish producer based mostly in Santa Rosa, CA, modified its manufacturing course of to childproof vape cartridges with out including additional single-use plastic – an innovation commended by the California Division of Public Well being. CannaCraft produces two million vape cartridges yearly. California and different states bar recycling vegetation from accepting waste that has come into contact with hashish merchandise. The next yr, 27.8 million plastic vape “models” had been offered in California, in accordance with Headset. However when OMG Farms, based mostly in Arcata, tried to provoke a bring-back program for patrons to return used vape cartridges to dispensaries, misguided laws in California made this system unfeasible. Vape retailers have struggled to determine what to do with cartridges – inevitably, they find yourself in landfills as a result of California and different states bar recycling vegetation from accepting waste that has come into contact with hashish merchandise. The Sacramento-based nonprofit Up Kindness sponsored an artwork exhibit final yr made completely of vape cartridges to boost consciousness of the problem. In the meantime, proposed laws in California meant to handle related waste from tobacco vaping appears to have gone nowhere. The New Jersey-based enterprise TerraCycle has developed a nationwide recycling program for vape cartridges, in addition to different kinds of hashish packaging. It’s a part of the corporate’s bigger mission to accomplice with companies and native governments searching for to eliminate hard-to-recycle waste, similar to espresso pods and different plastics. Terracycle operates numerous recycling packages in 21 international locations, however its solely cannabis-focused waste program is in Canada.

Biomass Boondoggle

In 1988, Francis Younger, the DEA’s chief administrative regulation choose, unexpectedly (and precisely) declared in a nonbinding authorized opinion that hashish “in its pure type is likely one of the most secure therapeutically lively substances identified to man” and “is safer than many meals we generally eat.” However regulators in states which have legalized hashish proceed to deal with the herb as if it’s a lethal, radioactive poison that should be dealt with and disposed of in a particular means. A number of firms are creating hemp-derived options to handle the problem of hashish business waste that state laws have both ignored or outright exacerbated. Simply as many state laws require extreme hashish packaging and prohibit their correct recycling, hashish biomass can be tough to eliminate. Not as a result of it’s a harmful, inorganic materials, however as a result of crimson tape in lots of states doesn’t permit mixing waste from the Evil Weed with different supplies. Illinois, for instance, requires any producer that wishes to destroy hashish waste should notify the Division of Agriculture and State Police, and probably should even have an worker from the agriculture division or one other state company current through the destruction. Reefer insanity by no means appears to finish. Conscious that time-intensive composting will not be an environment friendly disposal technique for a lot of cultivators, Micronwaste Technologies, based mostly in Vancouver, Canada, says it has discovered an answer to onerous laws on discarding hashish biomass. The corporate’s “Cannavore” technique primarily pulverizes hashish waste into water, mixing it with microbes and enzymes till it may be reused as water to irrigate hashish crops. The method doesn’t emit methane – which is an issue with different strategies of acquiring produced water – and the corporate claims the water can be despatched again into municipal sewage as soon as it has eliminated all “Energetic Pharmaceutical Substances” within the crop.

Mushroom Mycelium & Hemp Hurd

A number of different firms are creating hemp-derived options to handle the problem of hashish business waste that state laws have both ignored or outright exacerbated. Paradise Packaging in Butte County, CA, produces a singular, cardboard-like composite manufactured from hemp and mushroom mycelium that’s appropriate for formed or molded packaging materials and different makes use of, that are relevant for a lot of forms of merchandise, not simply hashish merchandise. The hemp-mushroom composite “is 100% bio-based and 100% compostable,” Paradise Packaging co-founder Ciaran McCarthy advised Undertaking CBD. “It’s additionally waterproof and fire-resistant.” Along with packaging and delivery containers for a variety of merchandise, together with hashish tinctures and wine bottles, Paradise Packaging is advertising biodegradable, mushroom/hemp composite seed starters and planters for hashish clones. “There’s an enormous demand for this materials,” says McCarthy, who appreciates the astonishing versatility of low-resin, industrial hemp, a plant with tens of hundreds of potential functions. To which we must always add another – sustainable, hemp-based packaging to mitigate the rising drawback of waste generated by the hashish business.

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Aaron Miguel Cantú is an investigative journalist based mostly in Los Angeles and Martin A. Lee is the director of Undertaking CBD. This text is customized from a forthcoming Undertaking CBD report on Hashish and the Inexperienced New Deal.

 

The cannabis industry has a packaging problem.   Hemmed in by regulations, the Canadian industry has created thousands of tons of needless plastic pollution over the last two years, and consumers have noticed. A quick search of social media will reveal some common complaints, including that shipping one-gram orders of cannabis in thick plastic containers might not be the best approach.   Under Health Canada’s regulations, packaging needs to be child-resistant, prevent contamination and ensure that the product is kept dry.   According to Plastics Engineering, one packaging solution could be grown right alongside the bud.   Hemp.   Cannabis packaging is more complicated than it might seem. It needs to retain moisture, while also keeping moisture out, and the product could end up sitting on a shelf for months before a customer opens it up.   Too wet and the bud could get mouldy; too dry and it could arrive underweight, brittle and with diluted potency. There’s also the issue of odour, as well as protecting the bud from light and static, which can further damage the product.   Creating the needed “barrier protection” can reduce the package’s recyclability or compostability, according to Plastics Engineering.   Earlier this year, speaking at the Plastics in Cannabis Packaging conference, Ron Kander, founding dean of the Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said hemp has the potential to be a sustainable raw material with nearly endless industry applications. But converting hemp into plastic is not easy.   “As it sits in the ground as a mature plant, it is carbon negative — it sequesters more carbon than it takes to grow. So, the question, as engineers and scientists, is how much energy is needed to transform that plant as it comes out of the ground into a useful product, without negating that benefit of being carbon negative initially,” Kander said. “That’s the systems problem we’re trying to solve.”   Some companies, such as Sana Packaging, are already working with hemp, but James Eichner, chief scientific officer and co-founder of the company, told Benzinga earlier this year that the hemp industry is limited by a lack of infrastructure.   “The hemp industry is definitely growing and becoming a lot larger year by year. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s still a really small industry with very limited infrastructure,” Eichner said.   Harvesting hemp is also labour-intensive, and growing the crop requires significant amounts of water, reports Ministry of Hemp.   Still, when stacked up against traditional plastics, the potential of hemp is unmistakable. While most plastic takes a thousand years to decompose, hemp bioplastics are completely decomposed within six months, reports Cannabis Industry Journal.   Speaking at the Plastics in Cannabis Packaging conference, Kander said there remains a need “to develop a better basic understanding of the hemp plant, not as an agricultural product, but as a raw material.”   In the meantime, consumers can drop off their used cannabis materials at any Tweed or Tweed-partnered retail store to be recycled. In 2018, TerraCycle partnered with Canopy Growth on a national recycling program, which now operates two streams: one recycling program for packaging and related materials, like joint tubes and plastic bottles, and another for disposable vape cartridges and batteries.

Late last year, videos of teenagers trying their hand at using a rotary phone went viral on the internet. Some tapped at it, others prodded at the holes, while a couple more just did not have a clue. But all-in-all, we were all amused on different levels, depending on what stage of the internet takeover we were born in. Toronto’s new cannabis retail store, The Neighbourhood Joint (TNJ), is creating a buzz among connoisseurs by bringing back to use an outdated communications system: the pneumatic tube system. The mechanism—inspired by the system used by newspapers like Toronto Star to send reports efficiently between buildings—is a key element at the outlet, located at 1987 Queen St. E. “The idea came about when we were faced with the challenge of having our storage room in the basement and our customers on the main floor. We quickly realized that having a “runner” physically run up and down the stairs, all day to deliver the product just wouldn’t be realistic or provide the best customer service. After doing some research we decided pneumatic tubes would be the perfect solution. On top of the functionality and increased speed efficiencies, it is a nod to Toronto’s newspaper history of using pneumatic tubes to deliver news between City Hall and the newsroom,” says co-owner Andrew Rhodes.