Leading the sustainable packaging revolution. Product packaging is a leading contributor to the current global waste crisis. James Eichner and Ron Basak-Smith from Sana Packaging join Dan Humiston to talk about helping the cannabis industry break the waste cycle by providing plant-based and reclaimed ocean plastic packaging. Produced by podCONX
Leading the sustainable packaging revolution.
Product packaging is a leading contributor to the current global waste crisis. James Eichner and Ron Basak-Smith from Sana Packaging join Dan Humiston to talk about helping the cannabis industry break the waste cycle by providing plant-based and reclaimed ocean plastic packaging.
Sana Packaging
[00:00:00] Dan Humiston: Today in raising cannabis capital. We are joined by Jay mash, ner and Ron Bassett Smith from Santa packaging, James and Ron. Welcome to the show.
James Eichner: Thanks for having us.
Dan Humiston: It's great to have you guys on again. We first met when you and Ron were guest on the deadhead cannabis show. And since then, I got to tell you it's like everybody, I talked to everybody I interview is Oh yeah, where are you? Santa packaging? It's didn't know about you before.
And then it was like, right afterwards, it was like, why didn't I know about these guys because it's a lot of the companies that we're interviewing are using your product, which is, just. Goes to show you what how the industry is really embracing this idea. And we're going to get into this as we go, but let's start off by talking about the problem.
How bad is the current global waste crisis?
James Eichner: The short answer is. Terrible. It's more difficult when you try to narrow it down specifically to the cannabis industry, just because it's still relatively difficult to come [00:01:00] upon reliable data for the cannabis industry. What we are sure of is that the industry in the United States is already producing billions of units.
Of packaging waste per year. And that's just based off of how much product we know is being sold.But if we're talking about waste in general, I believe that, over the last 50 years or so it's been something like 8.3 metric, tons of waste that's been created. But I would have to double-check that.
Dan Humiston: That's insane. That's insane. And a huge contributor to this is in packaging. Like most of that packaging that's in whatever you buy ends up in landfills or in the ocean. So talk about how your packaging is correcting this problem.
Ron Basak Smith: Yeah. I think for us big thing that we're trying to accomplish is integrate circularity into the product. One of the things that we can look towards is trying toreduce. The overall amount of material that we're using we can [00:02:00] design it to fit into a system.
And then we can also work on regenerating our natural systems. And the big thing that we see right now is the system that currently is designed for waste and recycled products. Isn't really designed to be a successful system, right? Like it's inherently designed to fail and that's, come to light, right?
That's just the problem. With the way that we relied on markets solely to get rid of, our waste and pollution. And I think, now we're coming to the point where there's these negative externalities. And so as a company we're really trying to just take away all the things that we see in the world of packaging, in the world of single use materials that we can do to help reinvent the system.
And so part of that is the materials we're going to use. And then the other part of that is also within the cannabis space. How can we use this new and evolving industry to be a catalyst for some systematic change? Whether that be a reduction in product used new materials or just, showing that there are people out there and companies [00:03:00] out there that do care about the impact of the
Dan Humiston: Yeah. I had a guest on ocean cannabis company. They were on our show for a while back. They were using your packaging and they were talking about using reclaimed ocean plastic. Now for the people that didn't hear that show, maybe James, if you could explain what reclaimed ocean plastic is.
James Eichner: Yeah, absolutely. The simplest way to put it as it's plastic waste collected either from the ocean directly or on its way to the ocean. So ocean bound. So there's five primary collection areas for reclaimed ocean plastic. And that goes everywhere from ocean bound, which is within 50 kilometers of the ocean.
Then there's waterways then there's Shoreline, and then there's nearshore and then there's deep sea. So depending on the type of reclaimed ocean plastic you're using, it typically comes from, those different collection areas. [00:04:00] So for instance, a material like HDPE, which is a material that we use around 90% of the deep sea.
Plastic that is collected for reuse is HDPE just because that plastic floats And and then of course it comes from different places around the world, depending on who's collecting it and whatnot, but really these are just materials that we choose to view ultimately as a stranded resource meaning that there's an abundance of it out there in the environment and , Just like we use any other resource.
This is out there available for us to collect and use. And in our minds it makes no sense to use a Virgin material when that material is already in existence, in abundance, polluting our environment. And by recapturing it and using it, not only can we put it back into the marketplace, but ultimately we can put it [00:05:00] back into the proper waste stream at the end of its useful life.
Dan Humiston: You see these horrible stories of sea turtles with straws in their nose. , it's just heartbreaking. And th this is an opportunity for us to get rid of that and move. What did you refer to it as Ron circular?
Ron Basak Smith: Yes, circular economy, right? Like just when currently these, the way we were looking at things is very linear, that take away waste, dispose model. And I think the big thing is you're bringing to light, like the image that everyone's seen of turtles with straws in their nose and those types of, things that grip us, but really at the end of the day, if we don't change the system and actually make sure that these things aren't happening and getting out into the environment in the first place and actually valuing
the material and valuing our environment, obviously these things will continue to happen, right? Like James was saying, we're taking this material, I'm making tubes. Hopefully it ends up back in the right waste system, but there's a potential that our tubes could end up back in the ocean again.
And so this is the reality of what we're trying to work with and bring these things to light, have [00:06:00] conversations about it and make sure that The more awareness there is to these larger systematic problems. We have a potential to eliminate them down the
Dan Humiston: I think like moving forward, if we start using different materials and I've seen on your website that you're using a hundred percent plant-based hemp plastic, and some of your products that seems like. The goal, like we want to move towards that eventually. Is that pretty effective?
And are you using that in a lot of products now?
James Eichner: Okay. Yeah. So we currently have seven products on the market soon to be eight. Three of them are hemp plastic products, and the other four soon to be five are reclaimed ocean plastic products and while we are ultimately material agnostic as a company, meaning that we want to always be using what we believe to be the most sustainable materials available and the materials that lend themselves best to a circular economy.
But with that in mind, The way we're looking [00:07:00] at hemp plastic and reclaimed ocean plastic is two different, but complimentary philosophies and approaches to packaging. So what the plant-based hemp plastic represents is the direction. We need to be moving and we need to be moving in the direction of using rapidly, renewable and regenerative resources to create single use products like packaging.
But at the same time, when we're trying to address these global problems like packaging waste we need incentives and reasons and ways to clean the environment. And so by using reclaimed ocean plastic, While we're not using plant-based materials there, we are creating an incentive for our environment to be cleaned through the collection of this plastic and the re-introduction of it to the marketplace where it can hopefully be then used over and over until finally [00:08:00] at the end of its useful life, it can't be used anymore.
So it's two different complimentary ways of addressing the same
Dan Humiston: Okay. And with the plant-based hemp plastic? That's just biodegradable. So , if you were to put that in a landfill, eventually it's just gone.
Ron Basak Smith: It's really interesting. The short answer is yes. It is about a gradable product. But that's a word that we are trying to move away from it and eliminate from our vernacular because there's no real definition around what is biodegradable. And also in many cases you actually don't want biodegradable products going into a landfill.
So one of the bigger issues with landfills. Largely not talked about and why we need to compost food and other materials that break down is because when those materials break down in a landfill, they actually release methane and nothing like carbon. Is causing the climate change that we are trying to eliminate.
And so these are these things that like, when we really get down to the nitty gritty of it. If it goes back to that original thing that we're talking about is the waste system, and how we are [00:09:00] poorly informed about it, poorly educated about it, misinformed about it. And then, now we need to bring back some of the realities of what's actually
Dan Humiston: Man. I didn't know that. I'm glad you said that to me , it makes sense. I just never really thought that much about it. Like I said, a bunch of the companies that we've interviewed are using your packaging and, almost more important.
They're promoting the fact that they're using your packaging. I read on your website that you have nearly 400 customers. So clearly the industry's embracing sustainability. Let's go fast forward. W. Over say the next five years, how big do you project the cannabis sustainable packaging market will be.
Yeah.
Ron Basak Smith: Yeah, it's a great question that we try to wrap our heads around a lot because. Like the, taking it to another point is defining what is sustainable packaging. And what that actually looks like for the marketplace and who defines what is, and isn't considered sustainable packaging.
And we're seeing more and more movement towards sustainable packaging in the cannabis space. , James, you have anything else to hit on there?
James Eichner: Yeah. So [00:10:00] looking at the packaging market and what we're moving towards and what we have to look forward to in the future is the global packaging market is already a trillion dollar. Global market and that's all packaging. And within that, the sustainable packaging market by 2025 is expected to represent 117 billion segment of that trillion dollar market. Again, this is a macro look at the entire sustainable packaging market. It's difficult to know how much of the cannabis packaging market will be split between regular packaging and sustainable packaging. But our assumption is that. It will be one of the pioneering industries of sustainable packaging, just because it is a new and emerging industry that skews progressive.
And we have an incredibly unique opportunity to [00:11:00] try and implement these sustainable and circular packaging systems from the ground up while we're still developing these best practices.
Dan Humiston: that's the key right now, because like you said, these are new companies. There's no legacy relationships with their packaging companies that they've been working with 50 years. And they're saying try this new idea. These are brand new companies. And they're like if we're going to do packaging, why not do it the right way?
So I think you're out of something. And what really excites me is. We're not talking millions, we're talking billions just in the cannabis alone.
And as a leader, as the first mover, it's challenging to keep that.Position and it's going to cost a lot of money to maintain and expand this lead. Are you guys raising money?
James Eichner: we are, we're currently in the midst of a capital raise that we'll be closing later this month. So if you're interested in learning more about that, please reach out to us.
But we're in an incredibly fortunate position this [00:12:00] year in 2020 to not be fundraising, to keep the lights on because we started cresting into profitability in February of this year.
So every month, since February. We're either a few thousand in the red or black, depending on the month. And so really the point of our fundraise and the vast majority of our use of funds goes towards product development. So growing and scaling and maintaining that competitive edge.
Dan Humiston: Yeah, man. That's exciting. Going from losing money to making money is great but like I said, you can't sit on your laurels. This is going to be a really competitive environment, especially for cannabis. A lot of cannabis companies are gonna want to go to this route.
I'm going to have links to Santa's packaging in the show notes. And so if you want to learn more about. Their company, what they're doing, if you want to buy their packaging, or if you want to talk to them about investing, I'm sure Ron or James would be happy to talk to you. Answer your questions, just click the [00:13:00] links, Ron James, this is good to catch up.
I'm really excited for you guys. And thanks. I really appreciate what you're doing for the environment for our industry. I'm glad your business is doing well, but I'm also glad that what you're doing is is making a big difference. So thank you. Thanks for being on the show.
James Eichner: Thanks for having