Gorge Greenery: The sustainable dispensary

In the era of climate change, more people are striving to help build a better Earth. Over-consumption and needless waste have long been burdens on our society, leading to a stronger push for a more sustainable life. With this in mind, Gorge Greenery has taken steps to be a sustainability leader in the cannabis industry. After being in business since late 2015, we can happily say that our practices are working.

The first step to sustainability is reducing waste. The easiest way to cut out waste from your life is to identify any “single-use” items used in day-to-day living. The word “single-use” is practically synonymous with plastics. Easy to make and cheap, plastics have been used widely as means to a packaging end, and the same goes for the cannabis industry. Many dispensaries sell cannabis in plastic medicine bottles, and all too often these bottles end up in landfills. Oregonians consumed 340,000lbs of cannabis last year, and most flower is sold from a gram to an ounce at a time. That’s a lot of single-use plastic bottles and bags. Plastics take hundreds of years to decompose and are toxic to the environment. This is both harmful to the environment and not sustainable.

Glass jars are returnable, which can be washed, sanitized, and reused.

In order to combat this, Gorge Greenery uses glass containers when packaging cannabis. Glass is far more versatile, recyclable and can be re-used many times without hindering the quality of the cannabis. Gorge Greenery also has a sustainability return program for our glass jars to reduce the consumption of packaging.  Our returnable glass container policy has been a notable success! More and more customers return their jars as a part of our return-rewards program. These jars are cleaned, sanitized, and re-used. This is a very sustainable practice and reduces consumption of single use packaging.  As a result of the program, Gorge Greenery receives about 85% of our packaging in returns to cycle though for another use.

Another factor of sustainability and eco-consciousness is to account for your carbon footprint. A carbon footprint is defined by the total emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, or product. For example, if you order an item off the web that needs to be shipped from across the country, your footprint is measured by the emissions generated delivering the package to your doorstep. Frequent purchasing from online stores or sourcing goods internationally generates the largest carbon footprint. In order to keep our footprint small, we source materials as locally as possible. We also receive out of state goods and cannabis packaging by freight which decreases our carbon footprint and the waste that is generated by standard shipping methods. Not only is this environmentally conscious, it also supports local business.

Reducing your carbon footprint is an important step in living sustainably, yet it is still very difficult to exist in today’s society and live a zero-footprint lifestyle. Due to this reality, we all need to take steps to help reduce our own personal footprint wherever we can.

Sustainability takes time and effort, but it is less daunting of a task than you think. Do your part in little ways and apply it to everyday life. Cut out single use plastics, say no to straws, become an avid recycler and support sustainability. Our mission at Gorge Greenery is to be a leader in sustainable business practices and lifestyle choices.

Life with plastics, and how to move away from it

Plastics have transformed our world. They revolutionized manufacturing. They triggered an explosion of economic development. Plastics helped with the advancements in technology and medicine that reached every corner of the globe. Plastics helped make the world what it is today. Without them, modern life would not be the same.

But at what cost?

We have a plastic use for just about everything. It’s used to preserve our fruits and vegetables, it makes for convenient and disposable carry-out bags, and even the keys on this keyboard are made of plastic. Hospitals were modernized with plastics, creating cheaper medical necessities such as syringes and sterile bandages. Many modern automobiles have plastic chassis. There is no doubt that plastics have provided countless uses and advantages to living comfortably in this world, but at what point does it become wasteful and harmful?

Plastic’s positive trait is also its negative: it lasts virtually forever. Plastic products can take, on average, 450-1000 years to biodegrade, and this leads to a buildup. The more plastic you make and use, the more of it, inevitably, ends up in the environment, and that’s where the most damage is truly done. “Single use” plastic products have the most lasting and damaging effect on the environment. Things such as plastic bags, plastic utensils and cups, plastic and Styrofoam takeaway containers, and plastic bottles serve only as a single use item before they are disposed of. This results in a high amount of waste generation, and is often completely unnecessary.

Take a look at this article out of the South China Morning Post. Hong Kong locals are lamenting over the excessive amount of trash that is washing up on their beaches. A local videographer points out that much of this waste comes from excessive packaging.

Do you see any similar patterns in our grocery store with the repacking of bulk fruits and vegetables?

Single use plastic cling wrap. Single use styrofoam trays. Why not chop your veggies at home?

This is an unnecessary and wasteful amount of plastic packaging. And while packaging products for transport and a prolonged shelf life does make sense in terms of preserving the product, there is such a thing as too much packaging. Chopping up vegetables and sticking them in yet another plastic package as a means of selling a product is an unnecessary waste. Why are we repackaging bulk fruits and veggies to entice the consumer to purchase? At what point do we stop putting profits ahead of generating avoidable waste? Do we have to sacrifice profits to prevent generating new waste?

The art of reusing and repurposing plastics is a growing trend. Again, the buildup of plastics continues and landfills are reaching capacity with plastics. They inevitably spill over into our environment, thus polluting it. Marine life is often poisoned, stunted or killed by plastic products. Public lands grow more polluted with plastics every day. All of this pollution creates incentive to curb it and roll it back, and when large organizations get behind this movement, much can be achieved. Take Ikea, for example.

Ikea is pioneering a new movement of recycling plastics and completely repurposing them, in this case for furniture, cupboards and countertops. If there is an abundance of a resource that isn’t going anywhere for a millennium, why not use it? This sort of environmentally friendly business practice makes a measurable difference in the world. Ikea also announced that it sent zero waste to landfill across all of its UK and Ireland facilities in 2016, achieving a 90% recycling rate in the process.

Ultimately, the best way to reduce plastic trash in the short term is ending the use of unsustainable single-use plastics entirely. One of the most harmful and common forms of plastic waste are plastic bags that you find at large retail outlets or grocers, and people are pushing for a complete plastic bag ban. The state of California voted to approve Proposition 67, enforcing a statewide ban on carry-out plastic bags. There is a similar sentiment in our own town of Hood River. On March 1st, all retailers with more than 50 employees (Walmart, Safeway, Roseauers) are now prohibited from using plastic bags, and retailers with less than 50 employees have until July 1st to comply with the new city ordinance. Here at Gorge Greenery, we package all of our cannabis in reusable glass jars and use reusable fabric exit bags.

Plastics aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. However, we can curb some of the adverse impacts, and even reduce the negative impact it has on our environment. All it takes is a little effort in reducing personal use, and some creative thinking to repurpose waste that is already here to stay. It can be done, we just have to change a few comfortable habits!

Sustainability-Driven Entrepreneurs

Right now “sustainability” still means pushing back against business as usual. As a young sustainability professional, I wanted to further explore the characteristics of successful sustainability-driven entrepreneurs.

1. Sustainable DNA

They make sure sustainability is baked into their business model. Over 1,300 companies have met B-Lab’s requirements and are officially recognized as a Certified B Corporation. According to B-Lab, “By voluntarily meeting higher standards of transparency, accountability, and performance, Certified B Corps are distinguishing themselves in a cluttered marketplace by offering a positive vision of a better way to do business.” There are also 1,200 companies have partnered with 1% for the Planet to donate one percent of their net annual sales to non-profit organizations working to tackle environmental challenges. Whether sustainability-driven entrepreneurs get official certifications and partner with big networks or just participate in similar practices without official recognitions, they always make sure they are having a positive impact on the economy, environment, and community.

2. Compassionate

Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported on a German study that found, “heightened sensitivity to the suffering of other people” is a major “emotional and personality-based driver of environmental attitudes.” Since systematically improving the way we treat communities is a major part of sustainability, it makes sense that the people who choose to work in the field also tend to be mindful of how they personally treat the individuals around them, which makes for great coworkers.

3. Highly Motivated

Sustainable entrepreneurship isn’t something people usually get into unless they are truly passionate about the issues. They believe in their vision for how much better the world could be and have an insatiable need to keep working towards it, even with the knowledge that they may not live to see it come to fruition. Because as anyone in the business of improving the world knows—it is an ongoing process, not a destination.

4. Resilient

Working towards sustainability is inherently emotional work, and because it requires going against the status quo it is filled with roadblocks and naysayers. Successful sustainability-driven entrepreneurs must have strong emotional awareness and they develop strategies to help them keep moving forward when the world tries to burn them out. In an interview with Net Impact Adam Hammes, sustainability professional and author, cited high emotional intelligence as the most important skill successful sustainability professionals possess. He said, “Without the soft skills of dealing with interpersonal struggles, the hard skills will never be put to use. You will get overwhelmed and burn out. Once you have developed emotional intelligence and soft skills, it is also helpful to then know your strategy – to save time and energy – and know your audience – to frame your approach in ways that make it well-received.“

5. Holistic Approach

Successful sustainability-driven entrepreneurs know the importance of approaching their work systematically. They make sure their actions truly match their philosophy and that they are making the intended impact on their surroundings. For example, a if a sustainability-driven restaurant owner uses compostable food packaging, then they make sure there is an appropriate and user-friendly disposal system in place.

*Source:  http://www.purelabels.com/