Reducing the environmental impact of cannabis legalization – one sustainable innovation at a time

Canada is on the verge of legalizing recreational cannabis – big news for anyone involved or invested in this growing industry. The excitement is palpable, as licenced producers gear up for production later this year.

There are still some tough issues to tackle however, such as concerns over safety, accessibility and the industry’s environmental impact. While safety and access are two incredibly important aspects of legalization, it is imperative not to overlook how the environment plays into the situation. As such, this article focuses on keeping Canadian cannabis green.

Environmental sustainability is an extremely important issue for any industry, and the cannabis industry is no exception. It’s not a big secret that even though the plants are green, cannabis cultivation can create a large carbon footprint and adversely affect the environment. The environmental footprint of cannabis is a major pitfall that will have to be navigated carefully for sustainable growing to occur. Ideally, in terms of environmental sustainability, cannabis would be grown via an individual on-demand basis, meaning that every person would grow what they needed for themselves. They would also be growing outdoors, in natural sunlight and with rain water (or water collected in basins etc.). However, this is simply not practical for our societal requirements, which is why licensed producers are undertaking massive operations to meet the rising demand for high quality, potent cannabis. Under strict governmental regulation, laid out in the ACMPR guidelines, 90% of aggregate cannabis cultivation occurs indoors, where environmental factors can be controlled, operations secured and premium products grown.

Growing indoors is all well and good, but creates a huge demand for electricity and hydro which can equate to a sizeable environmental footprint. Contributing factors include the vast acreage required for the size of operations planned by licensed producers around the country, as well as high energy usage, water demands, and waste creation. Lights are sometimes on for 24 hours straight, while temperature, moisture and ventilation must be regulated at all times. This all demands energy, which is expensive and taxing on the environment. Therefore licensed producers are always striving for efficiency wherever possible throughout their operations. Using energy efficient LED grow lights, recycling the heat produced to regulate temperature in other areas of the facilities, as well as reducing and recycling water (hydroponics) are all methods that have met with success, but the search for added efficiency is never-ending.

Of course there are arguments for growing all cannabis outdoors, where lighting and environment duties (moisture, temperature etc.) can be handled largely by Mother Nature, but this concept poses inherent problems in terms of quality control and security. Naturally everyone would love to be free from creating any environmental impact whatsoever, but the fact of the matter is that being able to provide a standardized product in terms of quality, and comply with the current ACMPR guidelines, indoor cultivation remains as the only option. This means that efficiency and sustainability must be sought after wherever they can be found.

This is where an often-overlooked issue found with large licensed cannabis producers lends itself to increasing efficiency. The overlooked issue in question is organic waste.

As licensed producers ramp up their production, the amount of organic waste ramps up as well. This organic waste occurs in the form of plant material, such as leaves, stems, roots, trimmings and other crop waste. It all has to go somewhere and finding a place for organic waste is proving to be more difficult to do sustainably than anticipated.

Paper, plastics and metals can be recycled, but organic waste requires special treatment. Before any plant material can be transported off-site it must be denatured. Denaturing means to kill off any pathogens and THC to avoid risking off-site contamination. This is a requirement for all licensed producers in Canada. Currently there are two viable methods for accomplishing this; burning the material, or composting it. Neither work very well in the context of sustainable cannabis at the licenced producer scale. Burning or incinerating the waste might be quick and cost effective, but it releases harmful carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. For this reason, it should be ruled out as a sustainable method and not relied upon by LP’s. Composting is another option, and is fine for the environment, but falls short on efficiency when considering the time it takes to compost so much waste plant material. It simply takes too long and creates a major backlog in operations. Methods such as adding cat litter and water, or other chemicals to the compost mix help speed things up, but lead to poisonous compost that can leach into the surrounding soil and ground water.

Luckily there is an option that might just provide the solution required – mechanical composting. Taking a page out of the “sustainability handbook”, Canadian licensed producer Indiva Ltd. has installed the provinces first BioRoter Compost Digester at their production facility in London, ON. It’s a 34-foot-long cylinder that’s built to compost like crazy.

“It’s great! Our BioRoter handles all our organic waste, turns it into compost fertilizer which we then donate to local farmers who regularly have a difficult time sourcing enough fertilizer to meet their needs. We place a huge emphasis on sustainable production through all aspects of our operation and our BioRoter helps us accomplish this,” says Indiva Ltd. COO Koby Smutylo.

Indiva Ltd. feeds all its plant material waste into the BioRoter, which in turn takes about a week to turn it all into high quality compost. The accelerated composting ensures no backlog of waste occurs while minimizing the environmental footprint that cannabis producers create through organic waste production. It’s really a win-win situation, where plant waste is handled naturally and the by-product it creates can be re-used to grow the crops of the future. The unit is also incredibly energy efficient and will pay for itself repeatedly as it is used.

It may not seem like a major innovation, but it’s options like this that are necessary to keep the cannabis industry and our planet healthy.

It’s important that LP’s remain informed about the technology available to them because now is the time for sustainability planning to occur, while changes can still be made before the pressure is on to earnestly produce crops in volume. Innovations like the BioRoter composter and companies like Indiva Ltd. help show the industry that it is not impossible to operate in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.