According to a recent report by the Sun Times, Chicago, Ill., USA, the cannabis industry is thriving in the U.S., meaning even more medical and recreational marijuana farming and more cannabis byproduct than has been legally allowed before is filling the post-consumer market, much of it directly becoming a form of bio-waste. But one company is taking that byproduct — specifically, cannabis stalks — and recycling it into environmentally friendly paper and packaging material. 

Restalk (Las Vegas, Nev.) aims to reduce the marijuana industry’s carbon footprint by offering legal cultivators an "eco-friendly recycling solution."

"As the marijuana industry is predicted to generate $35 billion by 2020, it is imperative to implement beneficial environmental practices before this sector enters its next phase," Restalk’s new Chairman of the Board Kyle Tracey said in a release.

"We will re-purpose the cannabis bio-waste into consumer products, and incentivize farmers by offering a royalty on sales relative to their contribution," he said.

 

In addition to medically active marijuana offering this new recycling stream, cannabis products including hemp made specifically for papermaking can perhaps be grown somewhat quicker in some arid regions that are warm but otherwise not suitable to fast growing managed tree forests, offering an alternative not only for production, but sustainable production in these regions. As more reforms are expected to soon be made to federal marijuana laws on certain levels, including industrial hemp planting and private commercial studies related to non-drug use of the plant, more will become known about the usefulness of it in various paper products designed for specific consumer uses.

Restalk expects to have a limited product line commercially available by summer 2016, and plans to scale up production in the second half of 2016, according to a Packaging Digest interview (March 4) with the company’s CEO and co-founder, Lucas Hildebrand.