In a highly competitive cannabis industry, operators seek opportunities to capitalize on potential advantages. One way business owners can cut costs and stand out from the crowd is by implementing sustainable waste management. Sustainability is no longer just a marketing ploy for companies to attract customers. Sustainability is often written into and is an important component of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reports. Incorporating sustainability by reducing, reusing and recycling may help your business save valuable resources and money while helping your company remain compliant and give Earth-conscious customers another reason to choose your product.
Reduce
The easiest way to save money may be the most obvious one—reducing your input. But at what point does it begin to hurt your crop, yield or processes? Fortunately, reducing inputs does not have to be sudden or drastic.
A good place to start would be targeting your most expensive input, which is typically soil if you are using fresh soil for every transplant. Try reducing some pots by a few gallons and documenting the yield differences. For example, transitioning from a 15-gallon pot to a 10-gallon pot saves 33% of your soil. So, if you pay roughly $4 per cubic foot, you’re saving $3.20 per pot, or 5 gallons of soil. If you did not hurt your yield when you ran your experiment, you benefit by saving 33% of your soil budget.
The same thing can be done with nutrients and water, but decrease those increments on smaller scales first to ensure any losses are minimal. Inversely, increasing the amount of nutrients and water slightly may also be worth a try; if your yield increases more than the proportion of nutrients or water you added, then that is still becoming more efficient, thus reducing waste from overwatering or using nutrients that would never be absorbed by the plant.
Reducing may not only be limited to grow inputs—you could also reassess your labor needs. By increasing automation, whether it be conveyor belts instead of push carts to move plants or a new piece of trimming technology, you could potentially reduce the number of employees you need to perform a task. As a plus, more automation could also prevent overworking employees and, in turn, help with retention.
Reuse
The cannabis industry has numerous opportunities for reusing resources. There are a few things you can clean and use again without any thought, such as mixing tanks, irrigation lines, drippers, sprayers, pots and clone trays. These items, which are typically plastic, can be cleaned with an oxidizer solution. If you had mites in the previous crop, spray the pots (or anything that will be around or touching the plant) with pyrethrum or another insecticide. This may help prevent infestation of the next crop.
Soil or growing media can be reused as well. Flushing the soil with water thoroughly at the end of the flower cycle will help remove lingering excess nutrients. Another option to make sure the soil stays stable throughout subsequent cycles is to add a pH buffer, like calcitic or dolomite lime, to keep the medium at a neutral pH for the life of the plant. Typically, pH should be 5.5 to 5.6 depending on the stage the plant is in. Add calcitic lime for acidic soil, and add dolomitic lime for basic soil. Or, if your soil is already neutral, add both for a great buffer to help with residual nutrients.
You can also reuse water, but it normally needs to be more of a premeditated thought while building your facility (though water collection systems can sometimes be added in later). Collecting and reusing runoff water—whether it be via a French drain system under your greenhouse, a cement drainage system with a collection reservoir underneath your grow, or another way to divert your water into one place—can not only reduce your waste but also save you money. This collected water can be run through a reverse osmosis system (which removes most minerals and contaminants) and reused as water with zero parts per million (PPM) for your plants. While some trace nutrients are typically helpful, this is not the case when you are collecting runoff. Certain nutrients can react to each other or become concentrated during collection. Starting with purified water ensures you can add nutrients at the levels you normally do without worrying about any adverse effects.
Recycle
Cannabis waste can be used to produce hundreds of other products that may one day be added revenue. While the proper infrastructure to create many of these products has not yet been established, it’s a work in progress. For example, a few years ago, Colorado began allowing the transfer or sale of THC-producing cannabis stalks to certain waste processing businesses without cannabis licenses (such as composters, anaerobic digestors or others that process biomass). This alone is a huge step, because companies can now buy this once-useless stalk to make high-trade compost or other products. However, always check with your state and local governing bodies before attempting to sell cannabis byproducts, especially to find out how to legally document sales and transfers.
Beyond recycling organic matter, plastic, glass and paper recycling bins should also be available, if possible. However, it costs money for someone to pick up these materials. You can try to offset those costs by collecting materials like cardboard and pallets that other businesses are willing to buy. If your business receives a steady influx of boxes, it may be worth looking into getting a cardboard compacter. The resulting brick of cardboard can then be sold to a third party with very little work going into the deal.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg when considering where the industry may be in a few years with new technology and more sustainable practices.
Being able to say you are a sustainably minded company may help from a marketing perspective now while also setting you up for future success in an industry that is increasingly regulated every day. All in all, sustainability is not just a fad or some passing trend—it is here to stay. Thinking ahead and going that extra step may just be the difference your company needs to stand out in a crowded market.
