A Pound of Packaging for A Gram of Bud

If you ask some folks in Canada how they feel about cannabis packaging, they’ll tell you they think it’s excessive. They wouldn’t be wrong either. Imagine if you will, buying a gram of bud that you’ve never tried. You place your order and wait to receive it via Canada Post. Keep in mind that in Canada there are strict guidelines to adhere to for cannabis businesses regarding packaging and labelling.

When your weed finally arrives, you find yourself opening the package, only to keep opening packages. First, it comes in an envelope, next you have to get the package inside the envelopes out. Now you have to open that package to get to the box in it that has your bud. When you get to that box you find it shrink-wrapped in plastic. After you remove the plastic and open the box you often find yet another plastic container in which you finally get to your bud.

That sounds like a lot of excess packaging, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. Buds, edibles, topicals, you name it and they all seem to have issues with excessive packaging.  The cannabis black market helped Glad Sandwich Bags grow to the mega-giant corporation they are today. That’s it, all we needed was a sandwich bag. If we didn’t have one, it was a cigarette cellophane. Canada isn’t alone when it comes to overkill on selling the nugs we love.

America Has Packaging Problems Too

Canada isn’t alone when it comes to excessive packaging. America is the land of plastic bottles and foil bags. In the U.S. the only thing that might save them from being as bad at Canada with cannabis packaging is that you can order weed using the U.S. Postal Service, yet. As broke as this defunct service is, this could be what saves it.

Regardless, you still get a plastic bottle or bag with your weed then placed into either a paper bag or childproof smell proof foil bag. Ancillary services that cater to packaging and labelling are doing good it would seem thanks to cannabis legalization. Sadly, there are very few programs in place to recycle these plastic containers.

Also, you can’t reuse them. They are one and done. The bottles often contain stickers. Just one more thing to tack on to that excessive packaging. Did I mention that there are foil childproof bags too? It just gets to be a bit much for some weed. Beer comes in a can or bottle, cigarettes in a box or tin, and chocolate in a wrapper. Cannabis is safer than any of these so why the overkill when it comes to selling and distribution?

The easy answer to that question is, it’s because of regulations.

Enough Plastic Bottles and Foil Bags to Build an Earthship

Maybe we need to unite as a culture and bring the community together with a universal project. We could all start saving and distributing this abundance of packaging to help others build eco-friendly Earthships. Just think of all the wicked cool homes that could be built!

Maybe if we started building villages for the homeless and homes for families with all the excess containers and bags, it wouldn’t be so bad. Regardless of what we do or could do with this excess packaging, something must be done.

What do you think would be a solution to preventing excessive packaging? Can we use it to do good with if they insist on overkill? Chime in, in the comments below, and tell us what you think about how cannabis is packaged and sold.

 

Article courtesy of Expert Joints. Written by JamesP from CannaLance (Canna-Lance.com, @CannaLance, @CannaLancer710)