Cannabis Waste Management - EcoWaste Services Interview

Cannabis Knowledge & Insights

Cannabis Waste Management – EcoWaste Services Interview – Arman Zeytounyan

One thing about regulations is that they can create business opportunities that weren’t there the day before.

And as you may know, not all parts of the cannabis industry are glamorous or exciting…cannabis waste being one of those aspects (depending on who you ask).

And lastly, it’s important to understand that, in the cannabis industry, most states & businesses are ‘starting from zero’, meaning they have little to no physical infrastructure and very few if any service providers ready once regulations are set.

If you need help with improving the financial performance of your cannabis business, then please reach out to us at https://greengrowthcpas.com/get-started/ or call 800-674-9050.

Arman and his team saw the regulations around cannabis waste disposal and quickly spun out another entity from their existing waste management business to focus on the cannabis industry.

In our interview, Arman shares his perspective and knowledge on many topics including:

Podcast Transcript

So with us today, we have our men who is the CEO of EcoWaste services. And thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me, Jim.

So Arman for the people that don’t know you, your business, you know, what you do, kind of give us a little 30,000 foot look at the business, how you help the cannabis industry, and then we’ll build from there.

Sure. So, like imagined my name is Arman. I’m the CEO of eco waste. We are a cannabis waste management company. And what that means essentially is that provided disposal service for the cannabis supply chain. We come by, we do a manifesting and collection of the waste, a generator generates, we haul it away and then we dispose of it. That’s kind of a nutshell snapshot of what it is. There’s a little bit more detail about what we do and how we help the industry stay in compliance and kind of deter the illicit market. but general overview again, you know, we were cannabis waste company. We come by, we collect everything from the supply chain, from retail, cultivation, manufacturing, distribution delivery, you name it. We, we service all the entire supply chain.

Got you. So cannabis waste, most people be like, there’s no waste in cannabis. So kind of let’s peel back. What is cannabis waste maybe specifically for a manufacturer or for a distribution partner? What are these pieces of waste that you’re helping to move out of the out of the supply chain into, you know, wherever they get destroyed at?

Absolutely. So there are different types of waste streams depending on the type of license or the type of generator that the client customer is. So it’s an answer your question. As far as the manufacturer, a manufacturer might have a post extract biomass waste that can be recycled or composted. Now it’s important to distinct distinguish that is biomass. If it has, anything more than 0.1% toxicity in hazardous material, it won’t be concerted. Cannabis waste will be considered a hazardous waste, which is a whole set of different kinds of waste stream, different regulations, different compliance requirements. but for a manufacturer, anything that falls less than that, which is possible to get to if a manufacturer lets the biomass sit in gas off for about 72 hours, I would say at least we would get it down to that lower toxicity level. Then we can take it as a cannabis waste and we can then work on either recycling it or disposing it depending on the exact contents, a distribution license, for example, they’ll have, they’ll have different types of waste. Again, depending on their situation. Sometimes the distributor might get a failed product back from a retailer or whether it’s edibles flower, bottle of liquids, et cetera. They’ll get those fields, throw back, they’ll need it, then dispose of it. it’s being client with the BCC. and we can kind of pick that apart a little bit too, as a distributor has like they have multitude of products and those products are treated differently as well.

Got you. So you said that, you know, as some of these products, cause you got volatile and non-volatile extraction, they have certain things that go to make these products. You’re saying that if the product sits or sorry is, removed sooner 72 hours, it becomes toxic waste. I’m guessing it’s probably a higher price point to get rid of that waste compared to just regular blown off cannabis waste.

Absolutely. and 72 hours, just remember it’s a rule of thumb. I don’t, I don’t pretend to be scientists. That’s always better to ask the scientists, those exact specifications. You want to do those testing, onsite for yourself. but absolutely the goal is to make sure that we try and get it to classified as cannabis waste because it’s classified as a hazardous waste as a volatile waste, the price could be three to seven times more expensive than a cannabis waste disposal service. and you know, there again, there are different regulations, different compliance requirements for that. so we want to try and help the industry to try and avoid spending more money where they’re already heavily taxed and heavily burdened with costs. Oh yeah. A hundred percent, a hundred percent

Through that. Yeah. It’s like, there’s so much red tape in this industry specifically in the state of California. It’s like, man, this is kind of like how your business kind of is essentially regulated into the industry, right? Your business wouldn’t exist without regulations mandating that these operators dispose of their waste. I’m sure every state to a certain degree has these types of regulations, but maybe not to the strict regulations of California. Do you guys operate in just California or other States and kind of shed some light on that potentially

Right now we’re operating just in California. Our coverage is Southern California. We have about a three hour radius from our base in Los Angeles. we’re working on developing more coverage up in Northern California. And of course the goal is to expand out the goal is to work on getting coverage in other States of Colorado, Washington, Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts, that’s our ambition. And you know, everything gradually builds as regulations continue to get developed as the industry continues to be more mature and more, I guess, accepting of following more compliance practices and guidelines, then we’ll be able to implement our service more.

That makes sense. That makes sense. And so when I was reading up on eco waste, I see that the origins of the businesses in food and construction industry and then, you know, and legislation essentially makes your business have to exist in the cannabis industry. So, you know, why did you guys transition from food and construction to this, cannabis industry? It was something always in the plan. Tell me a little bit about why choosing waste management for the cannabis industry.

Yeah, a great question. So, I’ll take it a step back actually from there, before eco, which was even founded in 2016, we had a company called bio waste. We’re a medical waste magic company. My business partner found that company in 2011 and I joined forces with him in about 2015, 2016. I started helping him out there. And then from there we decided to open up a sister company called eco waste. And that was around the time where California wanted to start really enforcing and pushing the diversion as for organic waste of food scraps and organic materials from landscaping trimmings and et cetera. And we decided to look into that and kind of get into that space. as soon as we launched, we, we decide to make movement towards that. But then we, you know, our focus was really more on biowaste at the time.

So we didn’t really have a lot of traction, eco Western 2016 and then around 2018, whenever the, regular cannabis became recreational and legalized certain California, a buddy of ours contacted us and said, Hey, you know, it’s legalized now. And we actually were told when we looked at the there’s this regulation for cannabis waste, can you guys look into it for us? Like sure. We’ll, we’ll take a look and see what notes situation is. so we did our research, we looked through regulations. We saw that, you know what? This is a, this is a urgent, the man for this service that we, I feel we’re pretty, pretty perfect for because we already have a lot of the setup form for bio waste. And we saw that the transition was very identical, you know, whereas food waste, it’s a little more of a harder barrier to enter because you have to deal with waste magic contracts, Republic, contracts, city, municipality, issues, or just cannabis as something that’s more specialized and requires a little bit more attention like medical waste. So we knew that, you know what, this is the kind of the field we want to get into. and we just, you know, put all of our efforts toward that.

Perfect. That’s a, you know, kind of all the serendipity of the industry coming together with your experience and your connections. So that’s probably a great phone call. You’re your friend.

[inaudible] like, you know what, that’s it perfect. We looked into it. And from there we just got a truck and we just, we just started immediately. We didn’t even made the website. Everything was maybe 30 days. We got up and going and start servicing industry, you know, right away.

That’s amazing. You know, I want to first touch about the team and then I want to go into a little bit about the services here. So tell us about the team behind it. It’s not just a one man or one guy at one girl show.

It’s a little bit about your team and who’s a part of the team and how big is this company? Yeah, we’re, we’re still, you know, a grassroots company. Me and my partner were part of the executive. You could call it the upper echelon echelon of it. you know, we’d handle a lot of the administrative and a lot of the marketing and sales and things of that nature. because the, we feel that we have the most experience and we we’re working towards expanding that team in a sales department and an administrative department. But I really actually want to give a shout out to our drivers because they’re really the heart of our, of what we do. You know, these are the guys that are boots on the ground. They’re the ones that see the clients most frequently, the ones doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

and they’re just awesome. Amazing guys. They’ve been with us for, you know, our driver has been with us on equal waste side, at least for, since the beginning, you know, he’s going to be here forever type of thing. just amazing people, you know, and we’re our, our, our focus is to make sure that the people that we work with, whether it’s internally and externally is about compliance and reliability. So when we look for tire someone, you know, it’s not something that’s, you know, enforced where you have to be at work all the time, right. But it’s someone that wants to be at work. You want to work with people that want to be there because we are happy with what we’re doing. We want our team to also be happy with what they’re doing. And so we’ve been, you know, we’ve had success in that. We’ve seen numbers,

That’s good. It’s not, you know, passion. A lot of these interviews I do passion is the kind of the, the one factor that makes a difference between a successful business or successful hire and someone who is going to be unsuccessful or kind of unhappy at the end. So it’s good. You’re looking for people that, and the desire to fix this problem with you. And, you know, it’s always going to be here. There will always be cannabis waste. So it’s good that you have those people with a long term kind of plan with that.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that’s, I think the same for many companies, not just us to, you want to look for aspire to have people on their team that have similar mindsets or similar or similarities in their culture. Right. So that’s kind of, you know, just really proud of, of our people.

That’s good. That’s good. So let’s switch gears. Let’s talk about compliance, right? This is the, the bad seaward around the entire industry for this, or for that reason, you know, cannabis is the only crop with so much red tape with the licensing process. You have to have a cannabis waste management plan. It’s critical to get approved pretty much, right. I think at least the state of California looking at the licensing and stuff like that. So how do you go about developing a cannabis waste management plan specifically for cannabis businesses? Or do you do that? Do you help with licensing for cannabis businesses when they are developing that plan?

Yeah, absolutely. We get those frequent questions, frequent calls for people who are looking to get their app application sentence. Of course they need a waste Madden plan. what we do is we have a general template that act as the guidelines for what we are going to do and how are we going to help keep this licensing and compliance? The specifications to each location is, has to be tailored with that licensee, of course. so we can’t write something that’s like very, specific to everybody. They’ll have to be in their side of it. They’ll have to designate where their cannabis waste area is. And from there they’re going to have to match, Hey, this is where the area is from in this SOP. This is work, you know, eco wastes, SOP kicks in where that waste magic plants kicks in. Once they come, they come get it from this room and they collect it and here’s what they do with it. Here’s the explanation for that. So that’s how we help. It’s more general template. And if they need us to write something more specific, we do a, we go in there and we’ll, we’ll write anything specific that they need in addition. But so far the templates been doing great job. It hasn’t been any issues with it. Everyone’s been passing and getting, you know, no problems with their cannabis wastes section. So

That’s good. And then does this tie into metric, at all? How, how does this tie into metric, you know, seed to sale kind of look past presale or post-sale, how do we get rid of this way? So this track and metric of their manifests that go with this.

Yeah. So it is track the metric, not as comprehensive as it should be, but it is it’s tracking metric where a cultivator or a retailer or licensee will have to reconcile that they’ve destroyed a failed product, failed batch in the system. It doesn’t go into detail as far as I guess, how, and the more descriptive nature of what you need to clarify between rendered waste and unrendered waste, but, you would be able to match your records or the licensee’s records with our manifests or manifests. I have a number, you match that number with, you know, whatever, IDs batch IDs of using in your system in your, whether it’s an Excel sheet, whether it’s metric, whatever system you’re using, you’d be able to match it.

Gotcha. Gotcha. And let’s talk a little bit about the wildfires has that kind of impacted now there’s a lot of conjecture in the industry. We still haven’t seen it shake out. We’re still in the middle of crop Tober. you know, you’re not, we have in the North, but there are still, you know, fires in the South here potentially affecting some of the outdoor grows. Have you seen business KickUp or kind of any products that have to be destroyed or cannabis is not passing COA because of these fires from your boots on the ground, your advantage, your vantage point

So far, thankfully nothing. I haven’t seen any issues directly from the flyers. you know, just, I guess a good thing in a way, there are, you know, it does, I’ve been flow as far as, you know, whether licensees have to dispose of it more urgent urgently, or in months, whether they have to, some months they’ll have more waste someone’s they won’t. So it does kind of flow in between that. thankfully nothing, no new issues directly from the fire so far.

That’s good. That’s good. yeah, man, it’s been kind of devastating to see all this stuff happen and it just gets worse every year. And I think that the pre fire season was worse than fire season last year. So

This one, it was bad, you know, last year it was closer to me here in Burbank, but, the zeros was pretty large comparison.

Yeah. And we’re still not over with it. So man, very far from over. So I want to talk about building your business. This it’s not sunshine and rainbows and cannabis every day. It’s tough fight. This is hard work. The specific work that you do is hard work, but the industry, because it’s kind of changing in the goal line is always moving, you know, different ways. What’s one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced building your business. And how did you overcome that?

Yeah. that’s a great question. So the biggest challenge I would say we had, was creating internal operating procedures that was focused on that reliability because you know, that’s something that we’re really focused on. I know, some of our competitors, they do a fantastic job as far as the environmental side is concerned and we’ve focused on that as well. But I I’ll admit that our focus is more listening. You have something that you need to disclose. You can’t wait seven to 10 days. You need it. And to get rid of it. Now, BCC is on you. They’re saying where’s the paperwork we need to get the same care. That’s what was the biggest challenge for us was to make sure that our systems are so, tight knitted, where those kinds of issues won’t come up. And thankfully we were, we’ve created that system where we’re very, very reliable where if you have a scheduled pickup, we’re there, you have consistent pickups happening and you won’t have to worry about that kind of issue ever coming up.

I would say, you know, secondary to that is definitely the environmental side. I, again, I, you know, kudos to our competitors are doing a fantastic job with the environmental recycling portion of it. The challenge with that space though, there’s a lot larger than cannabis waste challenge, that spaces that a lot of these end disposal sites are not properly set up to actually recycle material, particularly cannabis material, cannabis waste is still federally, criminalized, meaning a lot of these, the sites are still gonna follow federal law. They’re not gonna want to touch anything to do with canvas. You have to really kind of find a pocket there and work with someone in that pocket to get it done. But how does that solve the issue on a large scale? It really doesn’t when you think about it, you know, and that’s kind of what my focus has been a lot recently is trying to, you know, not find a quick hair, take it from more like what can we do to find a system that can be duplicated across the country and maybe the world, but I’m not going to go that granular.

Gotcha. And so are you running, do you service the hemp industry as well?

We don’t service that industry right now. The hemp industry is interesting. You know, we’ve gotten questioned, we’ve gotten acquired, you know, servicing the Hemp industry too, but you know, they’re able to monetize their waste and go for them. If they’re able to monetize their waste and sell it to someone that’s extracting it or taking seeds up, taking the seeds of the post extract biomass is being sold off to the back into the cannabis supply chain, you know, good for them. They don’t need a company like us to dispose it for them or better yet if they have the ability they can compost onsite and put it back into their agricultural process, which is fantastic.

Yeah, that’s great. I mean this whole testing hot stuff and just so much shit to do with the hemp. I’m excited to see how it develops over time. Cause I think hemp is going to be one of the biggest disruptors for so many industries. Bio-plastics biofuels, textiles, everything you could think of under the sun can be made from him. So

Well, I mean the trouble with that is, you know, the thing with that is, is, you know, supply and demand. It’s a catch 22, you know, we need, we need more hemp farmers to create more supply of him, which will bring down the cost to purchasers for that hemp to then be able to make textiles and products out of it because a bioplastic, you know, it’s going to cost us a lot more money than a regular polymer plastic. And it just doesn’t make sense for these manufacturers say, well, yeah, we’ll buy your waste at a margin, a higher margin so I can sell it at a higher margin. Makes no sense. So, you know, it just, I agree with you, I think in time that that space will really become the dominant space and anything cannabis related an overarching cannabis section a hundred percent, a hundred percent. So

Let’s talk about a little bit the early days here. you know, how did you go about aside from your, your, your friend that gave you the phone call, how did you start to develop and build this business? Right. Cannabis has a lot of, you know, who, you know, more than what, you know, cause you have to develop what you know, every day essentially. So how do you go about marketing a business? That’s an ancillary service. It’s not super sexy. You’re not in like the fun part of the industry doing packaging or whatever, you know, how do you market an ancillary service that

I like yours? initially the, the main point that we use to kind of get into the market was compliance and still is, but that was the biggest issue, you know? So in 2018, everyone was trying to get their license rights. So there was a surge of people that like, I need to do everything in compliance once they’ve heard about the waste and they were notified that this is something that, you know, you have to do for compliance. It was a little bit easier to open that conversation up with people. and a lot of, you know, I would say cannabis providers like lawyers and accounts and stuff help us out too, you know, and they give us referrals and their voices that, you know, licensees trusted. So it was really helpful for us to have that kind of referral coming from people like that that were trusted already by the industry.

You know, you would trust your lawyer to tell you what to do for clients who had trust for consultants. so those, those individuals and those groups really helped us out a little bit as well. But the tactic, the main tactic we use was, kind of a, I guess, a inverse to what the standard is today. If it’s social media and digital, we did a lot of mailers. We sent out a lot of letters, you know, originally the BCC had, you know, I think they still do. They’re releasing, addresses and information for licensed locations. So we were just sending out letters to them, Hey, make sure you have this, do you have this? You may have a license. Maybe they overlook this, or if they got denied eight, so you got denied sign up. so we did a lot of that and AdWords, you know, we put, we put out big budget ad-words initially, and that kind of helped too when people were Googling just a bunch of additional SEO stuff. So, you know, we did a lot of blogs, you know, we did a lot of interviews. We did a lot of online stuff to help our organic reach go up. And you know, now we’re just kinda maintaining that flow.

That’s great. Yeah. That’s a, you got to be a gorilla marketer when you get into the cannabis industry with so many that you like most platforms don’t allow you to advertise and you have to go with the mailers and super smart yet with all the information being out there, you kind of have your sub set of people to hit right away with a targeted message, print off 2000 flyers and you’re ready to rock and roll.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we still do it to this day. We regularly send out mailers cause it’s like, you know, it’s very direct and you know, the cannabis industry, again, like you said, they’re not, it’s not that easy to get access to them on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook because of the platform still kind of, you know, having given a little trouble for it. but the mailers were very direct and very quick and easy to like, Hey, you need this call us. Let’s talk about that. Got it.

Gotcha. So what’s one of the things that you wish you had known before you started your career in the cannabis industry?

Hmm. that’s a really good question.

I would say a little bit more about the cultivation side or the actual, you know, the growing side of it. You know, that’s something that I don’t have a green thumb. but that’s definitely something that I would have liked to have known earlier in my career. I still don’t know as well as I’d like to, you know, those things kind of flower my head. I’m a business guy, you know, more so than an agriculture guy. so, but that, that’s definitely something that I would have liked to have learned a little more about, you know, like I know how the actual process of growing it is, and maybe even doing a giving one a go earlier before I started it, just to have that kind of knowledge. but as far as the industry goes, I, I found it actually really enlightened to see how responsive people were having conversations and making friends and making, creating a network. it was really fascinating to see that happening.

Yeah. Building up those relationships is really, really critical. And yeah, especially when you can speak to a cultivator with lingo that they understand, it makes that conversation so much easier. The sale essentially becomes almost in the bag because you’re speaking the same language as them and they know that they can trust you. Like you said, you brought up the reliability, the trust, the competence is very important as an ancillary service to make the very well known that, you know, what the hell you’re talking about. And you’re not just someone out here trying to take money at a marijuana markup kind of thing. Cause you see a lot of that. Sliming, isn’t it, it’s still shaking out and it’ll always be there. I think it’s been pushed more to the side. So

No, absolutely. And that’s definitely what I would have focused on. We still kind of, you know, we, we don’t try and pretend that we’re something we’re not, you know, I will never say that. I know that the cultivation side of it as well as a cultivator does and it just, it’s not right. I know waste side. You want to know, we’ll talk about how pickups are done, the logistics of the truck. And talk to me, I’ll tell you, explain that to them. You know, that’s where, why I focus more on that? Like, Hey, we’re reliable to do pickups. I’m not going to sit here and try and pretend that I’m some kind of, you know, Ooh, cannabis connoisseur or something like that. But I’m going to tell you that, listen, as a business person, I’m going to make sure that your pickups are done your services top tier, and you’re going to get what you pay for essentially.

That’s good. That’s smart. Yeah. Don’t, don’t, there’s no fake it till you make it in this industry kind of thing you don’t want to do that, you know, your card will get pulled very, very quickly. Yup. Yeah. The circle is very small and yeah, it takes a long time to build up that trust and very quickly connect get taken away from you. Absolutely. So let’s just kind of talk about overall generally industry, you know, what are some of the interesting things you’re seeing in the cannabis industry nowadays, whether it’s through regulations, new products, new brands, mergers, and acquisitions, what are some things that kind of grab your eye or grab your ear so that you’re kind of seeing what the future may hold for eco waste.

I put a lot of attention on, regulations and compliance and topics of that nature. and I find it really interesting looking at these municipalities and what kind of conversations they’re having, you know, that city council, you know, because at the end of the day, yeah, we have state level issues, but we also have very deep, local level issues, you know, conspiracist will come on, you know, say what they’re gonna say. Some of it I’ll agree with some that I won’t, but I think we’d have to really look at our local government and our local city council members and see, what they’re talking about. And that’s what I kind of see fascinated with the cannabis industry. What I found interesting about this space is that, compared to other industries, we are very heavily involved in these conversations. The amount of people that are actually in talking to city councils and making moves and make, putting effort and advocacy for, allowing these cities to open up their cities to cannabis. You know, that’s something that I find very powerful and I find very interesting.

You go out and attend some of these city council meetings or go to talk to any lobbying groups, you know, how do you participate in this kind of stuff? Because California is 66% of the localities don’t have allow commercial cannabis activity. So do you go and head out to those different meetings and things like that, or have someone from your team head out there?

I’ve done it. I went to a few, I do some of the virtual ones. I try and put as much effort as I can, but you know, I’m still running a business as a grassroots company. So it’s, my goal is to get to a point where majority of my time is doing these kinds of Congress, having these kinds of conversations and having those kinds of conversations. I, I have, I have, you know, my plans laid out to participate more in these advocacy groups, but you know, it’s something that, you know, I personally rather put more of my attention on building the business first, making sure that the business is really solid so that when I do that, it doesn’t crumble whenever I do bring in more business or bringing more contacts or, you know, less of my time is not dedicated here, dedicated there, you know? So, I try and keep up as much as I can

For sure. That’s good. Yeah. It’s, it’s tough, man. Especially when California is so big, there’s so many places to go and see and do all these different things. Then you got to focus first on building the business, making sure that the, payroll is met and the lights stay on for these kinds of things.

Yeah. A hundred percent. That’s exactly it. You know, I’m building a business first at the end of the day,

A hundred percent. Yeah. Good deal. So then, let’s talk about other little known opportunities in the industry. You’re the only eco or sorry, the only, waste management group that’s come across my desk. I’m not saying I’m the tell all be all of anything in the industry, just that we don’t see a lot of these kinds of ancillary services or other kinds of opportunities. So when speaking with other people throughout the industry, have you seen any other opportunities that most people are not say, you know, drawn to because it’s not the sexy cultivation or the big brand stuff, you know, there’s, there’s lots of cool things out there. What are you, what are you seeing? That’s maybe some different opportunities that people can use to get in the industry instead of just jumping into a licensed cannabis operation and having to have a million bucks to start. What are some other opportunities you potentially see?

I mean, I won’t pretend to know anything unique, but a lot of there’s a lot of instant, like you said, there’s a lot of ancillary, options available to people. You know, it’s really based off of what their interests lie too, right? Like you can be B just being a blogger about how cannabis is connected to movies, for example, you know, like that’s something, you know, that’s some kind of, media information that can spread or help spread awareness on cannabis and on maybe the benefits of not just the, the cliches that, you know, everyone thinks cannabis is involved in. but there’s absolutely different than for areas that people get into. You know, whether it’s tech services, accounting and finance, you know, legal, you know, I would just suggest that people look at what they want to do and how they can apply that to the cannabis space itself. Don’t think it’s necessarily something that has to be the billion dollar business. If it’s meant to be, to be a billion dollar business, you can get it there if you really want to. But, you know, there’s, there’s, I think a bunch of room there may be, art, you know, you can be an artist, you can draw art specifically for cannabis retailers, you know, that can be your niche, you know, event planning, you know, there’s a bunch of different little things, pockets that people can enter.

That’s, that’s super enlightening. Yeah. You know, I like the idea of the content creators, the artists, and yet just doing what you love and how do you just add cannabis into that and kind of dovetail yourself into the industry. No. Cause cause you do one thing, you start to get, you meet a bunch of people and you start to see other opportunities, you know, I guess pretty much the advice is, you know, how to build a business and just to start, you know, and see where it takes you.

Exactly. And I think that’s a big thing that’s not focused on. Cause I think that’s the challenge with the cannabis industry. There’s so much money being poured into it where a lot of people maybe that aren’t familiar with it, I’ve just heard that friends use it or hurt people are, and it will look at him like, Oh, there’s a lot of money in this. Let’s let’s do something in there. You know? And even, even when they do think about something that’s silly or a new unique idea, they get too caught up in that million billion dollar investments world, you know what it’s like? Well, you can build a really good product that really good service or business without having to beat billion dollar company or a million dollar company. and again, like I said, you can get it to there if you really want to.

Yeah. I mean, pushing out, you know, the, the green rush has been one of the worst things that ever talked about in this entire industry has been immediate kind of like telling about it. Oh, there’s like a finite thing to go make all this money, but it really is. You can build a brand from now for a hundred years from now, right. There’s big T there’s big alcohol brands that are being made 190 years after legalization or after prohibition, you know, there’s still going to be opportunities. So don’t think that there’s this kind of small window in the 20, 20 or 2025 that you can only do this, you know, there will be opportunity over time.

Yeah, absolutely. And if anything, you can even watch the market and watch the industry and see what works, what doesn’t, what the market’s responding to. That’s also a benefit in its own way. Right. You know, it was just observing, without having to put any risk in yourself, if you really want to, you can observe what other people’s successes are and where other people’s failures are. And maybe that will trigger a new niche for you to kind of think about or to do

Super smart. They’re super smart. So then, you know, what else haven’t we talked about in this interview that you’d like to cover? Any other questions or thoughts or things you want to share with the audience, with people watching or listening right now?

I would just, you know, say that put a lot of continued, putting a lot of tension on compliance, regulation, advocacy, you know, I think that’s very important for our industry. I think that, you know, it’s gonna sound, you know, not, not everybody’s going to want to take this, but definitely look at your waist, you know, make sure that you’re disposing it correctly. Obviously I’m biased, but you know, from what I’ve seen, I get alerts for any kind of rates or rates that are done on cannabis companies. And most often, there most often than not, there is a, at least one pound tube, but most men, at least one, whether it’s liquid hazardous or cannabis, but at least once. So I would say really put attention to that. You’re putting burning money away for no reason, paying those to those penalties, just, just do it the right way, save money, you know, pay up front, but you pay less in the overall scheme of things.

So I’m definitely just, don’t, don’t sleep on the small parts of the industry than the unsexy parts of the industry. That’s good for sharing that. And then lastly, where can anybody find out about your services? What’s your website where, you know, where can people find out about you and learn more about eco waste services? So our website is www.ecowasteservices.com. We’re on Instagram, we’re on LinkedIn and we’re on Twitter at real eco waste. usually our Instagram is probably the best place to go. We try and put every day out some kind of headlines and links to, current events or news reports that are happening in the industry. so I would just, anyone that’s interested in keeping up with that and go there. We also have a newsletter, catching up on cannabis, goes out once a week. same thing, just top headlines in the past seven days what’s been happening in the industry.

we try and keep that one as tailored as we can to California, since our base is in California, and about regulations and compliance a hundred percent sign up for their newsletter. I love getting that. It’s like five or six articles. It really helps you digest. Cause it’s almost like drinking out of a fire hose here with the cannabis industry. There’s like, you know, for new bills or this or that. So sign up for really equal ways. A newsletter here. It’s a fantastic one coming weekly. And again, Arman. Thank you very much for your time. It’s been very enlightening to see this part of the industry and it’s not talked about a lot. So thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge with us. No, I appreciate it. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on it, you know, and like you said, it’s not something that’s talked about a lot. and that’s okay, but you know, I’m happy to share, you know, my experiences and what we see in the industry with everybody else’s books.

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