How do you dispose of your grow waste?

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Waste is a big issue in cultivation. The amounts can be staggering. It’s estimated that a single cultivation facility can generate tons of waste in a single year. @memberdirectory, how do you manage all that cultivation waste? Every state has different cannabis waste disposal requirements. So, I ask the question: how do you mitigate waste and disposal issues? How do you get rid of green waste? Do you recycle? Can you incinerate? If so, how do you burn? Can you compost? Got worms doing your dirty work? I want to hear about your garbage!

Do you have an invention that can solve waste disposal problems? Share with us! Let’s figure out one of the bigger problems that we probably talk about the least.

We’re talking waste today! Tell us about your trash!

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We address the issue of waste by promoting reuse of media indoor. Outdoor is easier because off season allows farms to do cover crops and amend. You can burn your stalks and use as a biochar to amend your soil for the following season. Reusing soil reduces much waste from packaging

Indoor we designed our fertilizers to allow soil to be reused without analyzing. We also encourage flood trays or saucers to collect run off water, which the plant and soil will uptake as needed. Thus encourages less water and mixed nutrients going to waste or down a drain. Then again all our products are animal friendly and kid friendly so the run off will not harm. Their are so many ways to be more conscious, just matters who you ask

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What a great response, @SensationalSolutions! I love media reuse and reintegration! How do you accomplish this task? Are there products or amendments that you are using? DO you give a rest period? What do you do with the roots?

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Continuous growing with our Micronized blends, no need to wait for breakdown. We just remove as much roots as possible and what remains gets broke down by enzymes, which becomes a good source of food. We have mastered this method for over 6yrs and have seen a major increase in profit to production cost. What I’m basically saying is we eliminated so many steps to increase profit and lack of downtime. Very crucial to commercial cultivation
One problem with non-micronized amendments is breakdown time. Just because it has a NPK of 12-12-12 not all of the NPK will be available. Temperature, microbial activity and food sources determine if anything the amendment has to offer will be a available

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Heck yes… I forgot, this is an awesome topic!!!

I hope not to get long winded… lol…

I reuse 100% of my waste! I have several bins and collectors for each component of waste. I grow without synthetic chems or pesticides, so i can repurpose into the cycles.

Plant waste (leaves/stems) throughout the cycle, are reused as feed for animals producing the waste i use as media.

Roots… Oddly enough, there is a small market for them cleaned and dried. Some folks enjoy using it for cooking and CBD content.

I collect on my pots, and filter for reuse. The filters are washable, so i dont have waste.

Soil… back to compost. That takes care of water, plant and nutrients.

Having worked with limited resources all over the world, you get to see how a lot of smaller communities handle some of their waste demands. Many times, whats construed as waste by us, is gold to someone else. Like the roots… I never would have guessed.

Agriculturally, i have had to deal with copious amounts of waste. You would be amazed at how much several 2400lb critters can produce waste. I had the stuff backlogged for years. Then i get a call from a native american reservation. I earned $20 a ton for poo, just to let some folks come out and collect it and take it away.

Titrating vegetable oil into diesel fuel was another fun waste repurpose. What resturaunts find to be waste from cooking foods, i turned into fuel for my truck.

The biggest point I can make, is that if you have a good seperation system for waste, you will be amazed at the demand for it. Rabbitries are picking up on my miracle food for their stock. Anyways, break it down, and see who is in the market!:cowboy_hat_face:

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@KrisGrows, thanks for chipping in your two cents! As always, they’re worth their weight in gold! It’s cool to meet other growers who are implementing waste-free systems into their facility design. It’s cool to know there are locals using the roots for something. I have never given it much thought but I’d also be willing to donate my roots if there are AZMMJ compliant patients who are using them for their medicinal value. Let me know if I can help! Do you know what they are doing to process the roots?

I have some contacts with the Pascua Yaqui tribe here in Southern AZ who also may be interested in your poo piles (if you have any to spare). I would also love to hear how I might learn to re-purpose that veggie oil for my old diesel ranch truck :cowboy_hat_face:

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From what I gather, and i will ask more the next time they come to collect, but they use it as any other root veggie in their dinners, breaksfasts. They swear the CBD content is noticable in their diets.

What extra fine roots that seperate from the tap when pulled, sit in the soil. I can screen my pot dump and collect quite a bit. I grind them down to a workable fiber, then add it to poltace packs for equine injuries! Open wounds heal nicely without proud flesh developing!

I have enough poo to feed the world, lol! I happily will even give it away!

Titrating veggie oil was great starting out. Cheap, easy. Just a couple barrels, hot water heater, and you can put together a crude station. Methoxide which is easy to blend, seperates carbon molecules, making it easy to wash away safely, leaving you B100!

A person cant easily do that nowdays. At the spike of our diesel fuel prices here many years ago, many of us in the ag industry sought solutions. Finding the information and build to do it is super easy and cheap… that was then!

Resturaunts caught on that they had liquid gold sitting next to the dumpsters. Now, every oil bin is locked up tight and contracted to a collection agency, to do the same thing. Deal is, resuraunts are now getting their monthly pick ups and cash drop off.l!:cowboy_hat_face:

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I throw my trimming remains secretly into a public bin.

The last time I did, I came back 1 hour later and there was a homeless person sitting next to that bin, smoking weed…

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These practices are ideal and incredible. To contribute to your approach and execution here, I think we can all learn from the alcohol industry on waste repurposing too.

I’ve been to plenty of dispensaries that either own, bought, or partnered with a neighboring livestock farm to sell of spent grain. I’ve even seen one in Nevada where they grow their own grains, distill their own products, and make additional composting materials to be reused on the farm. “Farm to Glass” anyone? Kidding.

What’s the possibility of selling/partnering with a small beverage company to produce a canna-tea or canna-soda? Would regulation and sale of plant waste (biomass) restrict this option?

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Oh the good ole days! I used to do that too. Just be glad it wasn’t a group of schoolchildren smoking that dumpster weed!

Back in the day, when things were a bit different, I went out on the “black trashbag run” to toss out old soil and trim waste. I pulled my old hatchback up to a dumpster and didn’t think much about the people around me. Big mistake. There was a bus stop full of people watching me from across the street. I bet they thought I was dumping a body (it was the West Side of Chicago, after all). As I dumped heavy black bag after heavy black bag into the dumpster, my audience grew. As I pulled the last bag out of the dumpster, a large stem buried in the bag ripped the exterior of the bag, spilling Pro Mix and leaves and stems everywhere. I swear I heard a collective sigh of relief from the bus stop when they realized I was just a lowly pot grower and not a serial killer. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there in a hurry and was a little more cautious when I did that black trashbag run in the future.

Glad those days are behind me now. These days, all the medium gets recycled, re-amended and reused with enzymes and microbes doing the dirty work. I recycle the plastics from any products that come in, and anything organic is turned back into plant food thanks to the worms.

Hey @vritzka, have you got space at your house in Australia for a small worm bin? Although the local homeless population in your town will sadly have to find another weed supply, it could be an easy way for you to safely get rid of your waste without ever leaving the comfort of your bong. :grin:

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Good idea! I’ll get a worm bin. Its less stressful that way.

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1 of 10, about 1000lbs here. I have been considering shredding into a swimming pool to make my own compost tea for the following year. Currently, fire is the most hassle free, so that is where I am.

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Here’s the headline:

“As the firefighters showed up to the scene, they were overcome by thick clouds of smoke. They tried to get the gear ready to fight the growing brush fire, but were quickly overtaken by attacks of extreme munchies.”

I know that was a stinky fire!

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Composting is seriously the way to go…

All in all, a farm can get out cheap with even a concrete slab.

Many cattle ranches have a slurry pit at the finishing lots.

Look into Slurry investments!:cowboy_hat_face: Cannabis can cash in on that too!

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Much cheaper and easier to grow a cover crop, about $150/acre, which should provide 10,000lbs of DM per acre and no management. Cannabis stems require mechanical breakdown to compost, a giant pile of stems doesn’t just compost on its own, I have tried it. I just ended up burning it in the spring. Now I burn it while it is dry, so I am not burning a wet pile of moldy wood. The amount of time to chip and move 10,000lbs of stems isn’t worth the cost savings in compost. We are talking about maybe 10 yards of compost after 2 years, with a value of about $300, and that is being generous for an unammended compost. It would cost much more in labor and fuel to process that.

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It was ashes in about the amount of time it took me to drink 2 beers. :fire::fire::fire:

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With or without the assistance of some Boy Scout water? :wink:

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Without. I just put a weed torch to it, and poof!

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I imagine it smells like Woodstock.

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You were almost there, it’s Weedstock!

Nice torch!

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