Cannabis vapes causing fires at Brady landfill

Discarded cannabis packaging and related products are posing ongoing challenges to Winnipeg’s waste-and-recycling streams — including becoming a fire hazard at the Brady Road landfill.

Built-in lithium-ion batteries in disposable vaporizers are believed to be linked to an average of one fire a month at the landfill, said Mark Kinsley, Winnipeg’s superintendent of waste diversion.

The fires are triggered when the batteries come in contact with the heavy equipment, he said.

“When the batteries get damaged, they can start a chemical reaction,” Kinsley said. “The good news is, they’re caught quite quickly, but you can see the potential. Fires are so destructive.”

There are more than 240 cannabis stores in Manitoba — including 142 in Winnipeg — since the drug was legalized in October 2018. As of last year, revenue growth from cannabis sales now outpaces alcohol sales in the province.

The stores typically sell a wide range of cannabis-related products, packaged in a variety of containers, pouches and tubes, along with disposable vapes.

Kinsley said there haven’t been any fires at Winnipeg’s recycling facilities, where there’s less contact with heavy equipment, but the vapes show up in both waste streams.

Efforts are underway to keep the devices out of the city’s trash cans and recycling bins, Kinsley said, with the public encouraged to drop off used vapes at the city’s 4R depots as part of a pilot project.

“Everybody’s efforts make a difference,” he said.

What is not acceptable for recycling, however, are the plastic pouches and black plastic containers used in packaging cannabis, he said.

Kinsley would like to see manufacturers redesign the vapes so that the potentially dangerous batteries can be removed, while also switch to clear plastic packaging, which is easier to recycle and remade into new products.

“We’re trying to keep these away from the landfill and the recycling plant.”

He’d also like to see Extended Producer Responsibility applied to the vapes, which means manufacturers would be responsible for the products’ entire lifespan, including its collection and disposal.

“We’re trying to keep these away from the landfill and the recycling plant,” Kinsley said.

Jesse Lavoie, founder and CEO of TobaGrown, an advocacy group turned grower and processor, said producers are keen to do their part to reduce waste but are limited in what they can do because the industry is heavily regulated.

“We’re always looking for innovative ways to make our packaging more green, but a big part of the challenge is that cannabis packaging isn’t designed by producers,” he said, adding it’s difficult to make the child-safety and tamper-proof packaging environmentally friendly.

“I truly wish we could use very green, easy-to-open packaging, but when we get the federal audits from Health Canada, they’d rip us apart.”

He agreed the all-in-one vaporizing devices, including nicotine ones, should be designed so that batteries can be removed.

And while he supports the city’s trial collection of the vapes, he suggested it should be incentivized, much like it is for aluminum cans.

“It’s a fantastic first step, I think incentivizing that return could definitely bring it a lot further,” he said.

Lavoie said a lingering stigma attached to cannabis use contributes to the degree of packaging used. For example, cannabis-infused beverages require additional security features, but no such requirement exists for alcohol.

“It’s not safe for a child to crack open a six pack, it’s also not safe for a child to open a pack of cannabis drinks, but why do cannabis drinks need to have these additional hard-plastic locks on them,” he said.

The solution, he said, is for stakeholders to come together and work on packaging that’s both secure and green.

“If our packaging was on similar requirements, overnight you’d see green innovation on the packaging,” he said.

morgan.modjeski@freepress.mb.ca