A New York senator filed a bill on Wednesday that would promote recycling in the marijuana industry once retail sales officially launch. Sen. Michelle Hinchey (D) is sponsoring the legislation, which would require cannabis shops to apply a $1 deposit for any marijuana products sold in single-use plastic containers and also reimburse consumers for that fee if they return the container. The senator is also behind a separate bill filed last year that would prioritize hemp-based packaging over synthetic plastics for marijuana products. In addition to mandating that retailers take steps to be able to collect cannabis bottles and jars from consumers who wish to return them after use under what it calls a “Cannabis Container Bill of Rights,” the new proposal would also require that marijuana packaging be made from at least 50 percent recycled materials. In the justification section of the bill, Hinchey said that New York’s adult-use marijuana law that was enacted last year includes “important” packaging requirements to such as childproof sealing to prevent youth from accessing the products. However, an “unfortunate externality” of those rules is that they cause the legal marijuana industry to have an outsized plastics footprint and to become a notable environmental consideration.” “The legal cannabis industry in the United States produces about 150 million tons of waste each year. Even when marijuana packaging is recycled at home, it is often sorted out by recyclers and taken to landfills,” it says. “While no industry is blameless in the plastic pollution crisis, New York has a unique opportunity to prevent a new source of plastic pollution as we consider the legalization of recreational marijuana.”
Kyle Jaeger, Marijuana Moment, 02/03/2022 11:32:00