Dying Earth
Hemp
4. Building Supplies
Of all the uses for hemp, even if you only have a cursory knowledge of the subject you're probably away of hemp fabric, clothing and paper, but here's one that's an eye-opener: Hemp provides all sorts of good building materials. You can make it into insulation as companies in the Netherlands and Ireland are doing. It can be used to make engineered building products like fiberboard and pressboard, and even be used to make 'hempcrete', a stronger, lighter, and more environmentally friendly version of concrete.
3. Paper
Hemp has been used for paper for at least 2,000 years, even though today hemp paper accounts for about only 0.05% of world paper production. Even though hemp is a far more quickly renewable and sustainable source of pulp for paper, because of the small number and relatively old age of processing equipment for hemp paper, help pulp ends up being several times more expensive than wood pulp.
1. Clothing
Hemp's been used for textiles since time immemorial--samples of hemp fabric in China date back to 8,000 BC--though it has certainly had a renaissance of late. Shedding the slightly rough and tough image it once had hemp has broken into the realms of high fashion, has been mixed with silk for lingerie, as well as being applied to more obvious applications where it's durability is used to best advantage: Providing material for shoes, jeans, and other tough sport clothing.
7. Carbon dioxide removal
While doing all this Hemp removes more CO2 from the air than trees do and is highly pest, weed and drought resistant. So, unlike corn, cotton, soy, wheat and rice, Hemp uses a lot less water and doesn’t require pesticides or herbicides. It also yields food that is more nutritious than all these others combined and isn’t plagued by their allergies. This chart compares the maximum amount of CO2 (in thousands of Kg) captured from the atmosphere by a hectare of Hemp with a hectare of Wheat and a hectare of Pine trees. What’s more, the amount of CO2 captured by roots and leaf mulch which gets left in the soil when a Hemp crop is harvested more than offsets the CO2 produced by the farm machinery required to harvest the crop. A hectare of Hemp, which reaches maturity in 90 days captures approximately ten times as much CO2 as a hectare of Pine Trees which take 20 years to reach maturity. - Hempfoods
6. Chemical Cleanup
One of the most intriguing uses for hemp is in cleaning up soil contamination. In the late 1990s industrial hemp was tested at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine to help heal the soil. Because of its fast rate of growing each season, up to 250-400 plants per square meter each up to 15 feet tall, hemp shows goof potential in cleaning up land contaminated with fly ash, sewage sludge, or other heavy metals--though hemp's use in phytoremediation on any scale is in its infancy. - Mat McDermott
5. Plastics
Hemp is also a viable feedstock for plastics production. Indeed Ford famously produced a prototype car made out of hemp & soy plastic in the early 1940s. Though it never went into production, with undue influence from chemical giant DuPont playing at least a part, as the photo above, of Henry Ford taking an axe to the car to prove its durability, shows hemp plastic can be strong stuff. More recently hemp has been made into shower curtain liners, CD & DVD cases, and all sorts of other products.
Fact obut Hemp
• Hemp does not require herbicides or pesticides.
• Hemp can be grown in a wide range of latitudes and altitudes.
• Hemp replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen, making it an excellent rotational crop.
• Hemp controls erosion of the topsoil.
• Hemp converts CO2 to oxygen better than trees.
• Hemp produces more oil than any other crop, which can be used for food, fuel, lubricants, soaps, etc.
• Hemp nut is a very healthy food, being the highest protein crop (after soybean) and high in omega oils.
• Hemp can be used for making plastics, including car parts.
• Hemp makes paper more efficiently and ecologically than wood, requiring no chemical glues.
• Hemp can be used to make fiberboard.
• Hemp can be used to make paint.
• Hemp can produce bio-fuel and ethanol (better than corn).
• Hemp can be grown more than once per year.
• Hemp fibers can make very strong rope and textiles.
The universal plant
Not to overly play into the stereotype of the TreeHugger moniker, but today is 4/20 so a quick review of all the great uses for industrial hemp--you know, that non-psychoactive relative of marijuana that for myriad moronic reasons is more or less illegal* to cultivate in the United States but not work with and sell--seemed apropos. From clothing, to food, to fuel, to a whole host of consumer and building products, not to mention helping in cleaning up soil pollution, it's only slightly hyperbole to call hemp a wonder crop
2. Food & Beverages
About one third of hemp seed's weight comes from hemp oil, which is both edible but highly nutritious, containing essential fatty acids. The whole seed is about 25% protein, and is a a good source of calcium and iron, as well as having more omega-3 than walnuts--all of which point to hemp's potential for food and as a dietary supplement. But hemp also can be put to good use in iced tea and brewed into beer, fermented into wine, and distilled into other alcoholic beverages. Oh, and there's hemp milk too.
Hemp
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