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Sustainability in Cannabis Packaging: Balancing Preservation and Environmental Impact

By Jack Grover
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Even a cursory review of cannabis reveals that the market has been notoriously wasteful, polluting the environment with chemical fertilizers, misused pesticides, contaminated plants, and—perhaps most problematically—thoughtlessly excessive packaging.

The industry is in dire need of sustainable practices, and the easiest way to start an impactful new trend is from the outside in: a.k.a., adjusting how you’re parceling your products.

Honing in on sustainable packaging isn’t just a good move for the environment. It’s also more cost-effective, less labor-intensive and allows you to provide consumers with the best possible version of your flower—no matter how far through the supply chain it’s had to travel before hitting retail shelves.

Cannabis has progressed: It’s time for its packaging to do the same

By the time legalization began sweeping the nation, the industry already had several decades of experience operating underground. With that discretion came a lot of built-in habits around not attracting attention, and for packaging, the focus was solely on not looking like a cannabis product.

An overabundance of plastic isn’t cutting it anymore—not only when it comes to environmental friendliness, but for the integrity of the product itself.

Today, increased legalization grants operators the freedom to expand without the fear of being seen, and as a result, there’s no longer any excuse for wasteful packaging to be the industry’s norm. Glass jars, Ziplocks and an overabundance of plastic isn’t cutting it anymore—not only when it comes to environmental friendliness, but for the integrity of the product itself.

“I’ve been designing packaging in the cannabis industry since 2013, and a lot of trends have come and gone. We used to put flower in plastic Rx jars and paper envelopes. In general, there was a lot of waste: excess boxes and jars that all get thrown away,” says Legacy’s Chief Cannabis Officer Ryan Hedrick. “And when consumers pull the products out of those containers, your marketing doesn’t remain intact. The box gets thrown away, and now they’re just carrying around a labelless jar. Not only is it bad for the environment, but it isn’t helping you promote your brand at all.”

How sustainable storage optimizes curing and shelf life of flower

As for the curing process, Hedrick used to use airtight buckets, which both took up a lot of room and wasn’t at all effective for maintaining cannabis’s ideal humidity levels. He’s since switched to passive atmospheric packaging, which utilizes increasingly popular technology to keep humidity—and sustainability—in mind. “The buckets weren’t letting any moisture out. On top of that, you can imagine how much room 165 five-gallon buckets takes up in a grow space,” Hedrick says.

The same goes for long-term storage. With humidity-controlled bags, operators can rest assured that their product will maintain its efficacy, because as soon as that pack is sealed, the humidity level is guaranteed to stay the same.

Cannabis brand Lava Leaf Organics relies on passive atmospheric packaging for efficient storage—mainly because of the reduction in carbon footprint and increase in terpene preservation.

“When we think about the energy involved in packaging and shipping large amounts of heavy glass jars compared to TerpLoc bags, it was an easy decision for us,” said Lava Leaf Organics CEO Tony Martinez.

“The bags are recyclable, and compared to glass jars with child-resistant lids, they’re much better at preserving terpenes. Using sustainable packaging allows us to put our best foot forward and to better control our customer’s brand experience.”

Tips for making sustainable storage work for you

Sustainable storage is an environmentally-responsible move for the cannabis industry to make, but when weighing the pros and cons of a big switch like this, operators should also keep in mind how positively it will impact their end product, consumer’s experience, and, subsequently, their industry-wide reputation.

Some product packaging examples in the market today

Placing your products in eco-friendly bags is just the start. There are definitely more tips and tricks operators can take advantage of to prolong the use of sustainable materials and ensure they’re leaving as small a footprint as possible. For example, Hedrick’s team reuses their passive atmospheric packaging for maximum efficiency—especially when it comes to bulk storage or curing.

“We mark all of our storage bags with the original strain, so we can reuse that bag for the same strain as long as it passes testing along the way. When I do so, I take a mixture of SaniDate and water to make sure everything is sanitized and clean,” Hedrick said. “That allows me to reuse them for about 3-4 months’ worth of curing and storage. You can reuse a bucket in that same way, but when it’s time to replace it, you’re still spending another $15-$17.”

Sustainable, humidity-controlled packaging is also ideal for testing consistency. If you send in five buckets of the same strain to be tested, you run the risk of them all sitting at wildly different humidity levels, which means some might pass, and others might be rendered trash.

All of the environmental benefits aside, using sustainable packaging just makes cents—literally. “Essentially, I’m saving a minimum of half a million in packaging every year. That’s my entire staff’s salary for two months. That’s incredible, impactful, significant savings that can make a huge difference for a business trying to expand.”

Sustainability in Packaging: A Q&A with Dymapak CEO Ross Kirsh

By Aaron G. Biros
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Ross Kirsh launched Dymapak in New York City in 2010. Born into a family with a storied history in manufacturing, he founded the company after working for several years in Hong Kong where his interests, skills and passions for product development took shape.

Filling a niche for smell-proof bags in smoke shops, the business grew as he immersed himself in cannabis markets around the country. After designing and inventing a patented, first of its kind child-resistant pouch for Colorado’s first adult use sale in 2014, the business has continued to achieve global scale and today is recognized as the worldwide leader in cannabis packaging.

While the cannabis industry has long drawn the ire of environmentalists because of its energy problem when it comes to cultivation, the packaging side of the business faces very similar issues; the cannabis industry also has a plastic problem. In most states where cannabis is legal, state regulations require producers and dispensaries to package all cannabis products in opaque, child-resistant packaging, with several states requiring dispensaries to place entire orders inside large, child-resistant exit bags prior to customers leaving with their purchase.

Dymapak, led by Kirsh, is working on initiatives to help address environmental sustainability in cannabis packaging and turn interest into action industry wide. Ross will offer insights and the business’s action plan at the upcoming Cannabis Packaging Virtual Conference December 1. And ahead of that chat, we caught up with him to learn more.

Aaron G. Biros: Tell me a bit about yourself and how Dymapak came to be. What brought you to the cannabis space and where you are today?

Ross Kirsh, CEO of Dymapak

Ross Kirsh: My family has deep roots in manufacturing. Back in the mid 1970s, my uncle and his brothers all launched separate manufacturing businesses after one of the brothers moved to Hong Kong to open a handbag and luggage factory. The 70s happened to be a unique time to work abroad in Hong Kong given few US companies were operating there when China first announced its open-door policy around 1979. And as you can expect, he became a sourcing agent for many large companies in the US who needed trustworthy boots on the ground.

I went to college, pursued IT and in the back of my mind always knew product development and the manufacturing process was too interesting not to follow. I already knew Hong Kong was ripe for learning entrepreneurship so I went abroad to learn more, and fell in love with the culture, the opportunity and the people.  Immediately after graduation, I moved to Hong Kong. I began working with my family, who taught me the trade – end to end. I helped develop several product lines and lived next to one of our factories in southern China to immerse myself.

After 3.5 years abroad, I began running sales operations back in the US. Fast forward a year back in the states, I had unique customers that owned tobacco and smoke shops telling me that cannabis packaging existed in the market, but not really what everyone was looking for. In truth, the business was born the minute a customer said, “Can you make me a retail ready smell-proof bag?” I figured I could, and the rest – as they say – is history.

What began and was established in 2010 truly took shape at an accelerated pace in 2013, when my relationship with one of the first dispensary owner/operators in Denver – Ean Seeb of Denver Relief – came with a golden opportunity; Invent a child resistant package for cannabis, one did not exist but it was mandated under Colorado’s first-ever recreational cannabis regulations. I spent 7 out of the next 8 weeks in China developing a solution and am proud to say our bag was used in the first recreational sale when Colorado went legal in January 2014. From there, the business grew rapidly, and organically throughout the industry.

Biros: Environmental sustainability is a big issue for cannabis. Not just on the energy intensive side, but particularly when it comes to packaging and its plastic problem. How is your company approaching this issue and are you working on any initiatives to eliminate or reduce plastic waste?

Kirsh: We recognize firsthand the issues that plastic presents. While the material is full of advantages, the disadvantages are both imminent and critical to understand.

What many don’t realize is, for most cannabis packaging that’s recyclable to actually BE recycled, the customer must first find a drop off location, either at a dispensary or elsewhere that accepts the material. The process relies exclusively on the consumer to take action because the products cannot be recycled curbside. And unfortunately, the stats show that very few consumers take the time to bring the packaging back in order to recycle it.

So, yes, we produce recyclable bags in our portfolio, but we really want to get to the source of the problem here – pollution. We looked in a few different areas. And we developed a different bag made with 30% post-consumer resin, meaning 30% is made from reused plastics.

Even more, we recently partnered with a socially conscious, industry leader in the space, Plastic Bank, which builds regenerative, recycling ecosystems in under-developed communities. They work to  collect plastic waste from the ocean – extracting it to ensure its opportunity to enter the recycling ecosystem. Through our partnership with Plastic Bank, we’ll help prevent more than six million plastic bottles from entering the ocean this year alone. And I’m really proud of that.

Biros: Where do you see the cannabis packaging industry going in the next five years?

Kirsh: I think that’s a fascinating question. Sustainability will play a huge role in the future of this market. Just like we are seeing single use plastic bags being phased out across the country, we’ll see that happen to other areas too as part of this larger trend.

I predict more on-time and on-demand needs in the future; the ability to see traceability in real time, similar to the pharmaceutical industry. People will expect batch numbers and lot numbers, with data, in real time. It’ll become central to the business.

Gaining and cultivating trust will be another big hurdle for companies in this sector soon. With federal legalization comes a greater sense of professionalism and more sophistication for the market.

Yet, the continued pressure on environmental sustainability will be the biggest change in the next five years. When you look at sustainability in the packaging industry, paying attention to the format or choice of material should be top of mind. For example, if you’re shipping a glass jar, the amount of space that takes up in a shipping container has a huge impact on the environment, what’s called a hidden impact. One shipping container can hold millions of bags, but you need eight shipping containers for glass jars to get the same amount of storing capacity. That’s about efficiency, which is a bit more hidden, and I hope that consumers will become more and more knowledgeable about what companies are doing to stay environmentally sustainable.

Biros: Ross, thank you very much for your time today.

Kirsh: My pleasure, Aaron.

Drug Plastics & Glass Launches Carbon Footprint Tool

By Cannabis Industry Journal Staff
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According to a press release, Drug Plastics & Glass, a packaging company that specializes in cannabis bottles and closures, announced new tools for their customers to calculate their carbon footprint. The company launched six new sustainability calculators with the goal to help their customers get more informed about their carbon footprint.

According to Jeff Johnson, director of marketing and business development for Drug Plastics, they want to show how small, incremental changes can have a lasting impact on a company’s environmental sustainability.“From switching to more eco-friendly resin and eliminating flame treatment, to calculating the savings gained from choosing PET plastic over glass, or eliminating collateral packaging, these calculators show how making simple changes can have a big impact on the environment,” says Johnson.

Here are some of their sustainability calculators they recently launched:

  • PCR PET Resin Sustainability Calculator: Reduce greenhouse gases by making new products from PCR PET removes plastic from the environment by converting PET plastic discarded by the consumer back into resin that can be used again.
  • Flaming Elimination Calculator: Conserve fossil fuels by opting out of the flame treatment process traditionally used to ensure water-based adhesive labels and silk screening would adhere properly to HDPE, LDPE, and PP bottles. Today, this is not always necessary.*
  • Bag Reduction Calculator: Determine the individual savings when you move to single bagging instead of double bagging bottles and closures inside the carton.
  • Concentrate Elimination Calculator: Switch from white pigmented bottles to those made with resin in its natural color state and eliminate CO2
  • Glass to PET Conversion Calculator: PET requires less energy to produce and saves on transportation costs.
  • Glass to HDPE Conversion Calculator: See the sustainable improvements in weight, transportation costs, and durability when you use HDPE instead of glass.

How to Properly Store Plastic Cannabis Packaging

By Danielle Antos
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Your plastic cannabis packaging has a big responsibility. It contains and protects your product, communicates pertinent product information and delivers the first brand impression to your consumers. In order for plastic packaging to fulfill these important roles, you must take care to store and handle it properly.

Following storage condition requirements for plastic bottles helps protect your cannabis product, your company and your customers. It doesn’t matter if your cannabis packaging is HDPE (high density polyethylene), PP (polyethylene) or PET (polyethylene terephthalate), proper storage is imperative to maintain the integrity of the product until you’re ready to fill it.

Bottle and closure storage conditions such as time, temperature and humidity can have an effect on plastic containers. The exposure and age of a sample can also affect shrinkage, impact properties and the stress crack resistance of the container. Not to mention the potential threat of contamination to your cannabis product and the poor impression of your brand in the eyes of your consumers.

You may be wondering how to obtain storage information. The best place to start is with your cannabis packaging partner. Your supplier should be ready and willing to share all vital storage information with you. The best suppliers realize that there is more to a business relationship than just the financial transaction of buying packaging. The first step in proper storage is to identify the type of material that was used to manufacture your bottles and closures.

Know Your Bottle Material Type – HDPE

If you are utilizing HDPE for your cannabis packaging, the storage time should be minimal and a strict first-in-first-out inventory should be maintained. Many end users will re-approve bottles after two or three years to ensure they are damage-free.

In addition, elevated storage temperatures allow plastic containers to further shrink and harsh conditions can actually cause severe distortion. The degree of distortion and shrinkage depends on the design and how the bottles have been stored. Higher storage temperatures also accelerate the aging process of the container. A moderate storage temperature should be provided to safeguard consistent bottle dimensions and properties. It is routinely reported that HDPE bottles can withstand temperatures of 110°F/33°C for brief periods.

Although humidity itself will not degrade the plastic container, a humid environment can have a direct impact on the secondary packaging, such as the cardboard cartons used for shipping. If you use stretch wrap and/or control warehouse conditions, secondary packaging problems can be alleviated.

HDPE bottles and closures should be kept as clean as possible – it is best to leave them in the original sealed cartons. The storage area should be kept clean, dry and dust, odor, insect, and rodent-free. Following this rule will help to build consumer trust in your brand. No one wants to purchase cannabis products in dirty, dusty contaminated packages.

Using PET Bottles?

PET bottles should also be used in a first-in-first-out system to limit the time in storage. Long-term storage should be accomplished using a sealed polyethylene plastic bag or lined drums, totes, bins, Gaylord containers, supersacks or seabulks. The plastic liner will help prevent dust and dirt from entering the bottles.

Elevated storage temperatures (above 100°F/38°C) allow empty PET bottles to shrink, mainly due to relaxation of the oriented and partially oriented regions of the bottle. Extreme temperature conditions (above 131°F/55°C) can cause severe distortion of the amorphous areas of the bottle, including the finish and neck. Moderate storage temperature should be maintained to ensure consistent bottle dimensions and properties.

To help protect PET bottles from contamination, the storage area should be kept clean, dry and dust, odor, insect, and rodent-free. Additionally, the storage area should be approved for food storage. PET bottles should not be stored in direct sunlight, and aromatic materials such as spices, solvents, ink, cleaning supplies and disinfectants should not be stored in the same area.

When empty PET bottles are shipped to or through areas where the outdoor temperature may exceed 90°/32°C, it is recommended that a temperature-controlled container or trailer capable of maintaining a temperature of 80°F/27°C or lower be used.

Polypropylene (PP) Closures

Closures are also an important part of your cannabis packaging. The storage time of unlined closures should be minimized. As with bottles, a strict first-in-first-out inventory should be maintained.

Elevated storage temperatures allow unlined PP closures to further shrink. Harsh conditions can actually cause severe distortion. The degree of distortion and shrinkage depends on the closure design and storage conditions. High storage temperatures accelerate the aging process of the closure; moderate storage temperatures should be provided to ensure consistent closure dimensions and properties. Like HDPE bottles, this type of closure can withstand temperatures of 110°F/43°C for brief periods.

When stored in humid conditions, pay attention to the integrity of the cardboard cartons the closures are stored in. The use of stretch wrap and/or controlling warehouse conditions will help alleviate damage to the cardboard. Just like their bottle counterparts, PP unlined closures should be kept as clean as possible and it is best to store in original sealed cartons.

Proper Storage Supports Your Bottom Line

Storing plastic bottles improperly can reduce the integrity of the plastic, therefore making it unsuitable to contain your cannabis product. Poor storage can also be detrimental to filling lines and cause production problems, which can result in reduced efficiencies and added costs.

Product recalls can also be a by-product of poor storage due to increased chances of product contamination. If plastic bottles and closures are not properly stored before using, distortion and shrinkage can damage the bottle labels used to identify your product. Shrinkage of your plastic closures result in a poor sealing surface which is detrimental to the freshness of your cannabis product. All of these side-effects can be very damaging to your brand image, from which it’s hard to recover. Consumers will lose confidence in your brand – leading to reduced profits for your bottom line.

Whether your cannabis business is in the early start-up stages or established with loyal customers, properly storing your plastic packaging will help protect your brand, decrease the risk of product recalls and increase your profitability.