High Tide Inc.’s five Canna Cabana stores will offer recycling bins for used cannabis containers starting this week, making it the first retailer in Alberta to do so amid consumers’ concern about the large amount of plastic being used that cannot be treated through municipal programs.
“We’ve heard a lot about complaints about excessive packaging that Health Canada’s mandated as a requirement,” said Jason Kostiw, spokesman for High Tide in Calgary.
“Any packaging that has the Health Canada symbol on it and from any producer, any retailer, as long as it’s the packaging that has the Health Canada symbol, we’ll accept it.”
Canopy Growth Corporation’s Tweed and TerraCycle launched the recycling program when recreational cannabis was legalized in October.
These recycling bins that are specific for cannabis packages from all legal sales, regardless of brand, are already available in Tweed stores in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland, said Jennifer White, senior communications officer for Tweed.
The used packages are sent to TerraCycle, which in turn cleans and melts them into plastic pellets to be made into new recyclable products.