Kindness3D wants to turn pot plastics waste into prosthetics

Canadian charity aims to recycle Cannabis Packaging Waste turning into Prosthetics

Since recreational marijuana became legal in Canada, purchasers have criticized the bulky and excessive amount of packaging that comes with it. This is due to Health Canada guidelines that say marijuana packaging must be tamper-proof, child-resistant and prevent contamination. Now however, a Nova Scotia non-profit is looking to transform that waste into 3D printed prosthetics.

“We just noticed that there was an obscene amount of waste,” said Jake Boudreau, founder of Kindness3D, during an interview. “To me it seemed incredibly wasteful. It was actually frustrating for me as a consumer.”

The main idea is to create artificial limbs from shredded plastic at a fraction of the regular cost and faster too. As you can read in Kindness3D petition at change.org:

“We are asking the people of Nova Scotia to stand with us, and set aside your plastic lids from cannabis purchases so that we may use them to build an artificial limb for someone in need.”

The recycling process from used plastic

The project initially started by shredding donated lids from drinks bottles. The company takes the plastic and then uses a modified paper shredding to cut the lids into smaller pieces. After that, printers can process them properly. Boudreau estimates that about 200-300 cannabis containers will create one prosthetic limb.

“We haven’t started printing with it yet,” he said. “But if I look at the cannabis sales in Nova Scotia, we’ll be able to smash that number.”

Currently, recycling and reprocessing is carried at Boudreau’s Dalhousie University Sexton Campus operation.

“If what we do can offer just a little bit of hope to somebody, we’re happy with that. But to see it go so far and to see so much growth and so much potential from it, it’s exciting.” Eventually, Boudreau hopes the NSLC will support his petition and work with Kindness3D to collect the containers themselves.

“It’s a just a natural fit,” he said. “I’m optimistic the NSLC will come on board. It’s just a matter of time.”

In fact, local restaurants and businesses in Halifax, Dartmouth and Cape Breton already offered their establishments as drop-off points for packaging.