A Collection Box Is Not a Recycling Program

Over the years, I have watched several cannabis companies attempt to create recycling or reuse programs for their packaging. Most began with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions are not enough to build a functioning reverse-logistics system.

One company introduced a small metal container with the goal of collecting, cleaning, and reusing it. The package was a responsible choice. Metal is durable, valuable, and relatively easy to recycle. However, the reuse program never became economically viable.

Another company designed vaporizer hardware that allowed consumers to remove the battery from the plastic body and take it to a battery-recycling location. It was a thoughtful idea, but customers could accidentally pull the battery out while charging the device. Asking consumers to handle lithium batteries also created legitimate safety concerns.

A third company distributed return boxes for its vaporizer hardware across Oregon. The boxes were placed, but there does not appear to have been a viable pathway for processing the returned devices. I still occasionally see those boxes, although I do not believe the program remains meaningfully active.

These examples are not included to embarrass anyone. All three companies made a greater effort than most. Their experiences show how difficult this work actually is.

They also demonstrate an important lesson:

A collection box is not a recycling program.

Before a box is placed, there must be a safe and economically viable plan for transporting, processing, reusing, recycling, or properly disposing of everything that goes into it.

What a Complete System Looks Like

Cloud offers a better example of how cannabis vaporizer recovery can work.

Cloud vaporizers are designed to be taken apart and reused by the manufacturer. Customers can safely use the products and return them intact through P3 collection boxes. P3 collects the devices and sends them back to Cloud.

Cloud determines which devices or components can be reused. Materials that cannot be reused are handled through the appropriate disposal or recycling process.

The customer is not expected to pull apart a lithium battery. The dispensary does not need to find a processor. P3 provides the collection and reverse logistics. Most importantly, Cloud accepts responsibility for its products after they are returned.

Someone from Cloud who reads my blog recently reached out and helped inspire this article. They encouraged me to discuss the role dispensaries can play by considering recyclability when choosing which products to carry.

I agree that purchasing decisions matter.

When products are similar in price, quality, and performance, retailers should ask what happens after the customer is finished with them. Can the product be safely collected? Was it designed for reuse or recycling? Does the manufacturer accept it back? Is there a verified destination for the returned material?

Choosing products with functioning recovery systems supports manufacturers that accept responsibility for what they put into the market.

However, I also understand the economic reality facing Oregon dispensaries.

Sustainability Is Not the Only Purchasing Decision

Many cannabis retailers are operating with little or no profit. Their customers primarily make decisions based on price, potency, brand, availability, and product performance.

In almost all industries, consumers frequently say they care about sustainability. When it is time to make a purchase, however, price and function often take priority. Researchers commonly describe this as the green intention-behavior gap.

Dispensary owners face the same problem. A buyer may prefer a sustainable vaporizer, but that product still has to sell and compete in an extremely price-sensitive market.

Retailers should consider recyclability, but goodwill alone will not create a recovery system. A product with a verifiable end of life system often has more production and design costs, as well as the costs of recovery and proper disposal.

Someone must bear those costs.

The Budtender Is the Missing Link

Cannabis has one advantage that most consumer-product industries do not have. Nearly every dispensary transaction includes a one-on-one conversation between a customer and a budtender.

That conversation influences what the customer purchases and what they understand about the product.

Budtenders have dozens, sometimes hundreds, of vendors competing for their attention. They are expected to understand effects, genetics, hardware, pricing, promotions, and customer preferences across an enormous number of products. Sustainability is competing for space in an already crowded conversation.

We also have to be realistic. Budtenders are frontline employees who may not be highly paid and may have little personal reason to promote a packaging-recovery program. Handing them a flyer and asking them to care more is not a serious strategy.

If we want budtenders to discuss sustainability, they need information, a reason to participate, and a simple message they can deliver.

That brief message could be more effective than a recycling symbol, a social media campaign, or a sign beside a collection box. It tells the customer what to do at the moment they receive the product.

I believe getting budtenders to discuss returning packaging and its end of life may be the single most effective way to increase cannabis-packaging recovery.

But that interaction needs support. Brands and recovery programs could fund training, retailer incentives, recognition, or rewards tied to verified returns. Customers may also need a deposit, store credit, discount, or loyalty reward.

The system becomes complete when the manufacturer designs a recoverable product, the retailer carries it, the budtender explains it, the customer returns it, P3 collects it, and the manufacturer accepts responsibility for what happens next.

Without that conversation, a collection box sitting quietly in the corner will only reach customers who already understand what it is for.

The Model I Have Been Looking For

While researching this article, I discovered Pact Collective. I had not heard of Pact before, but I am extremely intrigued by what it has built.

Beauty packaging shares many problems with cannabis packaging. The containers are often small, made from mixed materials, or manufactured from plastics with limited end markets.

What interests me about Pact is that it connects packaging recovery with packaging design. Brands, retailers, packaging suppliers, collectors, and processors participate in a shared system. The businesses help fund the recovery program, while the information gathered from collected material helps them design better packaging.

This is something I have dreamed of doing in cannabis.

P3 sees what happens to cannabis packaging after the sale. We know which materials can be identified, separated, cleaned, reused, recycled, or sold to an end market. We also know which packages arrive with no realistic processing option.

In my experience, few cannabis brands consider those realities during the design process. Packaging decisions are usually based on price, appearance, compliance, and function. Whether the package can actually be recovered comes later, if it is considered at all.

Pact appears to have brought the right participants into the same conversation and created a system they are willing to support. I want to understand how it accomplished that and whether a similar model could work for cannabis.

Anyone interested in packaging recovery should take a closer look at Pact Collective.

Incentives Work

Oregon’s BottleDrop system is an obvious example of a successful recovery incentive. Oregon achieved an approximately 87.7% redemption rate for covered beverage containers in 2025.

I may get distracted and throw another recyclable into the wrong bin, but I almost never throw away a bottle or can with a deposit on it.

That container has value.

The incentive is built into the system. Even if I do not return the container, someone else has a reason to recover it.

That is the difference between asking people to recycle and giving them a practical reason to participate.

EPR Is the Best Funding Path

A deposit, store credit, replacement discount, or manufacturer-funded reward could all improve cannabis-packaging returns. Budtenders and retailers could also receive education or incentives tied to verified participation.

Personally, however, I believe the most viable long-term funding source is extended producer responsibility.

EPR is based on a straightforward principle: companies that place packaging into the market should help pay for what happens to it after use. That creates a funding source connected to the amount and type of packaging being sold instead of asking collectors, dispensaries, consumers, or local governments to absorb the cost.

EPR can also correct the imbalance between responsible and irresponsible packaging.

A company that invests in reusable, recyclable, or recoverable packaging will probably spend more than a competitor purchasing the cheapest disposable option. Without intervention, the responsible company carries the additional expense while the other company walks away after the sale.

That is backwards.

Manufacturers using packaging with no viable recovery pathway should pay into the system. That money should support the collection, transportation, sorting, reuse, recycling, and proper management of the materials they introduce into the market. Programs that document real recovery should be eligible for that funding.

EPR fees should also encourage manufacturers to redesign packaging. If companies can lower their costs by choosing materials that are reusable, recyclable, easier to separate, or compatible with an established recovery program, sustainability becomes part of the business decision.

Pact has created a voluntary version of this relationship within the beauty industry. Cannabis has struggled to do the same. EPR may be the mechanism that finally brings manufacturers, retailers, collectors, processors, and packaging suppliers into one system.

The details will matter. Fees collected on vaporizer hardware, small polypropylene containers, flexible packaging, and other cannabis products should not disappear into programs that cannot process those materials. They should fund systems that can demonstrate actual recovery.

Purchasing Matters, but Infrastructure Matters More

Dispensaries should consider sustainability when choosing products. Budtenders should discuss returns with customers. Consumers should bring packaging back. Supporting manufacturers like Cloud sends a signal that product responsibility has value.

But voluntary action will only take us so far.

A successful reverse-logistics program needs safe product design, convenient collection, transportation, a known destination, manufacturer participation, education, incentives, and reliable funding.

The manufacturer needs a reason to design a better product. The retailer needs a reason to carry it. The budtender needs a reason to explain it. The customer needs a reason to return it. The collector and processor need to be paid for their work.

I believe EPR offers the best path for connecting those pieces and ensuring that companies using unrecyclable packaging help pay for solutions that work.

The cannabis industry has already tried good intentions.

The next generation of programs must be designed to work economically, not just environmentally.