GrowLife, Inc. Files Provisional Patent on Plant Waste Manufacturing Process as Part of Product Innovation and Sustainable Solutions Initiative
Business Wire Business WireFebruary 28, 2018
KIRKLAND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
GrowLife, Inc. (PHOT) (“GrowLife”), one of the nation’s most recognized indoor cultivation service and product providers, today announced that it has filed a provisional patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), through its wholly owned subsidiary GrowLife Innovations, on an novel process to repurpose waste plant materials into building materials and other products for use in indoor cultivation centers.
The patent, which specifically addresses waste materials from plants of the cannabis family following extraction of oils used to make consumer products, provides for a process of manufacturing left-behind fibrous plant materials into polymer composites. A commonly known fiber-reinforced composite is fiberglass, among many others.
“This proprietary process will provide the entire industry with a sustainable solution to a problem that is only going to get worse as demand for plant-based products increases which has barely been identified and will have a huge impact on profitability of cultivators in the future,” said Marco Hegyi, CEO of GrowLife. “Cultivators are being held responsible for disposal of these used plant materials at a great cost to them with little to no options for reuse of the materials. This patent will help us to continue to meet the needs of our customers while furthering our mission of helping them maximize their revenue while keeping costs down, further positioning GrowLife as the go-to solution for innovative indoor cultivation services, products and technologies.”
As the regulatory environment for cannabis production in the United States shifts to favor legalization and consumer demand for oils and concentrates increases – currently accounting for about 20 percent of all legal marijuana sales and growing at a rate of 125 percent, according to BDS Analytics – the amount of plants produced for extraction will continue to rise. Experts estimate that 80 percent or more of plant material is wasted after the processing and extraction of oils and concentrates from cannabis plants. Based on some estimates that the United States produces 22 million pounds of marijuana each year, waste of post-extracted plants could be estimated to be over 17 million pounds each year.
“We designed this process to help achieve our mission of making our customers more efficient in their production,” said David Reichwein, Vice President of R&D for GrowLife. “We identified an area of extreme waste for our customers that is not only inefficient but is non-sustainable. This method would take these used plant materials and repurpose them into a line of sustainable and eco-friendly products for use in our customers’ grow facilities among other commercial building applications.”
He continued, “This process uses by-products from processed plants differentiated to their molecular phenol species, to prepare polymer composites that have broad applications such as stable plasticizers with anti-microbial properties. For example, if polar binders are utilized, which include but are not limited to polyester, polyolefin, lactic, butadiene materials, the cannabis fibers can be saline influenced/amine groups/vulcanized to improve computability, essentially creating a non-toxic and environmentally safe plastic.”
Wholly-owned subsidiary GrowLife Innovations is tasked with researching and developing new products and methodologies that ultimately revolutionize the indoor plant cultivation industry through its product and service offerings.
For more information about GrowLife, Inc. please visit the company’s website. Products can be purchased at GrowLifeEco.com. Additional commentary on the Company and the industry as a whole can be found on the CEO’s blog.
About GrowLife, Inc.
GrowLife, Inc. (PHOT) aims to become the nation’s largest cultivation service provider for cultivating organics, herbs and greens and plant-based medicines. Our mission is to help make our customers successful. Through a network of local representatives covering the United States and Canada, regional centers and its e-Commerce team, GrowLife provides essential goods and services including media, industry-leading hydroponics and soil, plant nutrients, and thousands more products to specialty grow operations. GrowLife is headquartered in Kirkland, Washington and was founded in 2012.
