*By Amanda Weston*
One packaging company is helping cannabis-lovers go doubly green with sustainable, multi-use containers. The mission of [STO Responsible](https://www.storesponsible.com/) is to combat the cannabis industry's single-use plastic problem ー and boost its sales in the process.
"Packaging drives sales. That's just something we know in all business," Sandra Elkind, co-founder and chief creative officer, told Cheddar Tuesday.
"But it's one of the only industries that has such strict regulations on packaging, that producers have a hard time being able to create packaging for their products, so they are stuck using what's on the market. And in addition, they have very little choices for sustainability."
The company's containers were specifically designed for the the cannabis industry, achieving what Nicole Elkind, co-founder and CEO, called the "first line of sustainability."
"We see the first line of sustainability \[as\] being something that will be multi-use rather than single use, which we've designed it to be exactly that," Elkind told Cheddar.
"In addition, it's recyclable. On top of that, we have partnered up with a product that coats this in basically enzyme food. So when this product ends up in a landfill ー similar to a fish tank where you put the food on the top and all the fish come swimming and are eating the food ー this becomes food to the micro-organisms and the enzymes that are in the landfill."
Sandra said her products' end of life is less than five years ー compared to material that would take up to 500 years to break down.
The Elkinds said they took steps to ensure the packages are child- and pet-resistant.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/sto-responsible-creates-eco-friendly-cannabis-packaging).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
