Sustainable CBD Packaging: Getting Back To Nature — Absolute Nature
Growing hemp may be good for the earth, but that doesn’t make the CBD industry automatically more sustainable. Sustainable CBD takes deliberate effort.
Getting back to nature is not just a catchy phrase but our absolute mindset. The inconvenient truth is our planet is drowning in plastic with no signs of slowing down. It is estimated that more than 8 BILLION METRIC TONS of plastic has been created since the early 1950’s. Nearly half of this number was made after the year 2000, according to Roland Geyer at the University of California at Santa Barbara. There is a growing problem with plastic packaging that we can no longer overlook.
Getting back to nature needs to be more than a catchphrase.
The Absolute Nature team took a hard look in the mirror and decided to act to make more sustainable CBD. We aim to lead the way with excellence! Even if what we come up with is small, changes must be made, and any change is better than doing nothing at all.
How were we to even begin? What should we do? Our meetings became less about customer acquisition and marketing strategies and more about how we can clean our own house. We became passionate about doing our best to limit and eventually remove all plastic packaging and non-biodegradable materials, in house.
Our hope in this article is to put aside selfish gains of capitalizing on a new customer base but to do our part in waking up the community. Our goal is to set up a viable path that will educate and inspire others to help cut down plastic waste within our own industry and within their own lives. We believe a sustainable CBD industry is a real possibility, if we act collectively.
Plastic pollution: A reason for action
Plastics have played a dominating role in the packaging of goods. Everything from what we eat to what we use to entertain ourselves with is built from and or coated in plastics. Plastics offer an easily sourced and low-cost solution to packaging needs that most businesses see as their only option. Plastic can be molded and colored to fit any companies branding. Low cost, easy to store, and safe to use for the most part.
Unfortunately, plastics also have a side to them that is not as flattering. One-time use plastic packaging adds up in time with just the amount made for one person. Now multiple that on a scale of billions over 50 years and it won’t be hard to imagine the problems our grandchildren will inherit.
This is a fast-moving train that shows no signs of slowing down. 8 Billion Metric tons is hard to even comprehend, much less know where to even begin in tackling this issue. We asked Ministry of Hemp to help raise awareness of this issue and do what we can to help get this message out.
Where to start?
It starts with just a single step in the right direction and staying committed and disciplined to see it through. There are so many places to start and work on.
Don’t stress yourself out hitting all the points at once. Creating sustainable CBD is a process that will eat a lot of resources to achieve. Start where you can and build upon that. It took us almost a year to get here and we are still not finished!
Sustainable CBD starts with the technology
Our first change was not even reducing plastics!
We made our first move by cutting down our carbon footprint with the servers we use. Believe it or not, data centers account for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions, which is as much as the airline industry! Experts expect data center pollution to grow to 14% of total emissions by 2040.
Making more sustainable CBD packaging choices can be an important step, but other changes happen behind the scenes. (Photo: Absolute Nature / Desiree Kane & Ministry of Hemp)
With this in mind, we hired GreenGeeks for our data center needs. GreenGeeks began in 2008 and, built on a commitment to be the most eco-friendly web hosting company in the world. By 2009, GreenGeeks was recognized by the United States Environmental Agency as a Green Power Partner. GreenGeeks works with environmental foundations to purchase wind energy credits to put back into the grid three times the amount of energy Absolute Nature consumes.
This was just the first step we took in reducing our carbon footprint.
Making CBD packing & shipping more sustainable
Our next goal was to tackle our packing/shipping procedures. We started with removing bubble wrap and Styrofoam peanuts from our shipping packages. We had to rework and set in place new policies and procedures for our warehouse employees to streamline this new way of packing and shipping product. Though this may seem like a small thing, it’s a lot harder to break old habits and start brand new ones at the drop of a hat.
We really want to praise our hard-working employees to take this change in stride! We replaced the bubble wrap with thick brown packing paper that is neatly rolled and secured shut. Then, we replaced styrofoam peanuts with now bio-degradable pellets. There is an extra cost in doing this that we have to absorb, but we believe it’s worth doing.
Using glass instead of plastic
The next item we looked at tackling was the plastic bottles we used for our products. Our hemp flower was sold in plastic pop top bottles. We sourced glass jars to replace the plastic pop tops. This was nearly a 70% increase in packaging cost right from the start. But for us, ethics over profits.
Creating more sustainable CBD is an ongoing process, with added costs. However, even small steps can reduce waste and pollution when taken collectively. (Photo: Absolute Nature / Desiree Kane & Ministry of Hemp)
We then removed the plastic bottles for our CBD Fruit Gummies line to also use glass jars. For our hemp CBD pre-rolls, we use glass tubes with cork tops. Our next move is to move our full-spectrum CBD softgels to glass tinted jars next.
Again, starting anywhere is better than not starting at all. We refuse to sit back and do nothing!
We can work together to make the CBD industry more sustainable
Absolute Nature is committed to not only offer the best CBD products on the market but do it in a responsible and respectful way to the environment.
We look forward to a time in the future where our tiny ripple in the market changes to a tidal wave of change. If the hemp community works together, we can tackle sustainability head-on. We believe if we can put aside our difference and work together towards a common goal, we can achieve anything.
Try Absolute Nature CBD: Whether you’re part of a CBD brand or just an everyday hemp consumer, we hope you’ll give Absolute Nature a try! Use coupon code BEWELL to get 40% off your order!
Originally published at https://ministryofhemp.com on September 30, 2020.
