Kindness3D wants to turn pot plastics waste into prosthetics

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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.”

Prosthetics
Nova Scotia has one of the highest sales of cannabis in the country already. Legal marijuana packaging for four grams of weed contains two plastic containers; two cardboard boxes, and clear plastic casing. All within a brown paper bag. (GREG MACLEAN / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

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.”

prosthetics
Kindness3D is a chapter of E-Nable. They use open source prosthesis designs available on the web. The prosthetics are donated to people around the world who can’t afford them. (Photo via CBC).

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.

prosthetics
To date, Kindness3D has successfully delivered two devices, one to a little girl in Costa Rica and the other to a paralympic athlete in Brazil. (Photo via Change.org).
Source CBC News Change.org CTV News

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3 Comments
  1. Scott says

    Where is this elusive nugget?

  2. Carol Oddy says

    Great idea…is there somewhere to send the plastic for Pot bags if you live in Canada?

  3. Darren says

    Great way for making use of wastes so we can keep our planet more cleaner.

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