Cannabis packaging over the top
Some cannabis buyers are complaining the bulky packaging is environmentally unfriendly, but producers say government guidelines are to blame.
Greg MacLean, who picked up some newly legal cannabis at the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation last week, was shocked to see how much packaging was used for four grams of weed: two plastic containers, two cardboard boxes, and clear plastic casing, all enclosed in a brown paper bag.
“My initial reaction was a bit of shock that such little amount of plant matter came with so much packaging,” he said.
“I’m a medical user of marijuana as well, and I’ve been buying from different dispensaries online from certified providers, and nothing comes like that. Like, ever. Crazy. It’s unneeded.”
As per Health Canada’s guidelines, packaging must prevent contamination of the cannabis, be tamper-proof, and be childresistant — a step up from the plastic baggies the product was often sold in before legalization.
“Do they really need to have that?” said MacLean, 37. “I mean, no liquor bottles that they sell at the NSLC has a childproof cap on it, and a bottle of vodka would kill a child.”
Candace MacDonald also bought cannabis on legalization day and was similarly shocked when she got home and unboxed her products, which also came in layers of packaging. She bought 5.5 grams, and each strain came in different containers.
Out of curiosity, she weighed the “very hard plastic container” for a single gram she bought, and was appalled to find that it outweighed the product by nearly 40 times — 38 grams of packaging for one gram of weed.
“And once you open it, it’s just such overkill. There’s one itty-bitty bud in it, and I could probably pack half an ounce in there,” she said.
Allan Rewak, executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada, said the industry has been concerned about potential waste diversion problems “for a while,” but also understands Health Canada’s caution.
Rewak said all packaging and warning signs have to be of certain dimensions and also childproof, which add to the amount of materials used.
“It has to include real estate so to speak, to include all the warning labels and warning signs as well as an excise stamp that the federal government prescribes,” he said. “The good news is most of the product packaging is recyclable.”