Sustainability Issues and Solutions in the Cannabis Industry

     Let's not kid around, the cannabis industry is rapidly expanding and just as when any economy or industry expands quickly, the chase for the almighty dollar makes the environment an afterthought. If we look back at the timber industry, your choice of manufacturing, energy production and most all other industries, when times get rockin' the environment starts suffering. But lessons of the past don't have to be repeated in this industry IF everyone involved takes a minute to look at their own activities and do their part to have a positive impact on their surrounding environment.  Two areas of concern are the impact that the industry is having on water and carbon emissions.  But to qualify these two as actual risks, we need some numbers to quantify the impacts.   The issue with quantifying is in part due to the nature of the industry and many times illegal operations are clandestine.  So I turn to two scientific studies that help will help show a snapshot and make it a reasonable assumption the cannabis industry is having enough of an impact for people to act.

      The first study was conducted by a group in the Eureka, California area in conjunction with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Department.  Isolating four watersheds in northwestern California and using aerial imagery the group was able to estimate the plant counts along with the water flows before and after the cultivation sites.  The goal of the study was to study the impact of marijuana cultivation on watersheds, water flow and the ripple effect of those impacts.

     Marijuana is a thirsty and hungry plant.  Consuming up to 22.7 liters of water per day, marijuana uses much more water than let's say, wine grape which consumes 12.64 liters of water.  Along with the high-water consumption, marijuana cultivation is best during the summer months when precipitation drops for most of the country.  Because of that, many times water is diverted from water sheds and stream flows to water plants which is where the first impact is measured.  According to the study, flow reduction in streams that passed by marijuana cultivation was reduced by up to 23%.  Not only is this having an effect of decreasing water flow to areas such as old-growth redwood stands, the impact of the decreased water flows has a domino effects.  Sensitive aquatic species that depend on those water sheds are being impacted.  Although not quantified, the impact is real and potentially ever-lasting.

      So water consumption is a concern as with the pollution.  I could not find any studies on the impact of outdoor growing in regards to nutrient rich runoff from outdoor growing but common sense is an ally that if something foreign is introduced into a ecological watershed, there's going to be an impact.  And when using "drain to waste" methods of cultivating marijuana the runoff is significant, especially when lit is scaled to the size of the industry.

     But that is a snapshot for outdoor growing.  How about indoor growing?  There are two impacts of indoor growing.  The first is the water consumption and pollution while the second is the carbon footprint left by the amount of energy used in indoor growing operations.  The first is the water use. While the water used by the plant is part of the picture, the other is the use of reverse osmosis water for indoor growing.  Reverse osmosis is the process of purifying water and is largely a staple for indoor cultivation.  The problem is the water waste from reverse osmosis (RO).  Most RO processes will result in 1/3 of the water being usable and 2/3 being drained down the drain as waste.  Being a single plant can use up to six gallons in day, you can see the math adding up the waste that is involved.  The second impact is the pollution.

     Even when using hydroponic growing methods, which requires reservoir changes every couple of weeks, water is then drained into our water systems full of nutrients that were used to feed the plants.  These include salts, excess nitrogen and phosphorus are being delivered into our water systems and just has been documented in the agriculture industry, these foreign contamination can have ill-effects for many down the road.

     The last impact is the energy use.  Everyone that has been engaged in this industry has heard the variations in these numbers.  The most conclusive were completed in 2012 study that estimated that 1% of the nation and 3% of California's energy is used for indoor marijuana cultivation.  That translates for every 2.2 pounds of finished marijuana, over 10,000 lbs of CO2 is released into our atmosphere!  When that is scaled to U.S. production of today, that is roughly the same as 3 million cars!  That's....well it's not good.  But I have my thoughts on solutions.

Push vs. Pull Solutions

     Markets are altered by pushing or pulling.  Pushing is normally government regulations such as what is happening in California going after illegal growers in the redwood areas or Boulder County which is going to require marijuana facilities "directly offset 100% of electricity, propane, and natural (gas) consumption" through renewables or other means.  That will be the focus of the governments that recognize this as an issue and will look to solutions to not repeat what other industries have done while expanding.  The problem with that is, that government can suck.  They are expensive, have little resources to regulate, are slow to act and will interfere with the industry as the outreach continues.

     The other is by pulling the change in the market via the consumer.  That is where the consumer, by having a choice in their products and how they are created, force companies to change their practices to satisfy the customer demands.  A great case in point is in the case of Eco-labels, specifically the WindMade Eco-label that has been launched in Europe.  The WindMade label was created to create a demand for products that were created using wind energy versus coal, nuclear or other non-renewable resourced energy production.  What studies showed were astounding.  Not only would consumers over-overwhelmingly prefer a product made from wind energy but would actually pay a premium for those products.  So in translation, a company that was approved and used the eco-label would not only obtain more market share but also charge more for their products.  Brilliant!  Here are some additional ideas to lessen the impacts to the environment.

Using solar.  Solar in most the entire state of California, Arizona, New York, Nevada, Colorado, Texas and others is cheaper per kilowatt hour than using coal-based grid electricity.  Make the switch to offset the electricity use.

Filter water instead of using RO.  The main culprit in water is the larger contaminants that can just as easily be filtered by a water filtering system.  This will reduce the water waste immensely while still giving your plants the clean water they need.

Find an alternative to drain to waste.  There are plenty of options of systems that re-use water such as hydroponically growing or re-circulating waste water that is then filtered for re-use.  Explore the alternatives and use the waste water on your favorite veggies to limit the nutrients leaching into groundwater.

In my opinion, that is the direction the marijuana industry should aim for in the near future.  By giving customers the option of choosing a Eco-friendly version of their most favorite dank, the industry is "self-regulating" itself while pushing out the growers that are not using sustainable practices.  Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to make this industry 100% sustainable, especially the black market, and there will be some need for government oversight, at least the industry can help pave their own way to making great products while being kind to our Mother Nature.

Aaron
If you love your bud, kiss a grower!

Resources

Bauer, S., Olson, J., Cockrill, A., Hattem, M. v., Miller, L., Tauzer, M., & Leppig, G. (2015). Impacts of surface water diversions for marijuana cultivation on aquatic habitat in four northwestern California watersheds.

Mooney, C. (2015). One surprising downside of marijuana legalization: Major energy use. Washington: WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post.