Written by an anonymous guest contributor. For more, check out Code Green.
(GLOBAL) - Our society has a plastic problem. In America alone, we throw away over one million pounds of plastic materials per person every year. At this rate, by 2050, our "oceans will contain more plastic than fish by weight". Half of this plastic could be recycled but not everything can. Most of society couldn’t make it without at least some plastic products, but so much plastic is wasted.
Enter hemp plastics, a solution to our problem. With hemp plastics, people can still have the plastic bottles and bags we’ve become accustomed to, but without the severe harm to the environment. Plastic items can take up to 1,000 years to decompose in landfills, but hemp plastics typically take only 3-6 months.
You may be thinking “What even is hemp? Isn’t that like weed?” Hemp and marijauna do come from the same plant, Cannabis Sativa, but hemp has a very low, non-psychoactive percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the compound in marijuana that gets you high. Hemp comes from fibers in the stalk of the plant, which has been used to make rope and other similar products for centuries. Today, we can use hemp to create sturdy, environmentally-friendly plastics.
Hemp makes a great replacement for plastic products because it contains cellulose, just like regular plastics. Cellulose gives plastic their moldable-yet-durable characteristics. Petroleum is typically the main source of cellulose for plastics. Heavy exposure to petroleum products like plastic can have long-term negative effects on humans, sometimes even resulting in coma or death. Unlike petroleum, hemp is non-toxic and safe to be around. They, unlike petroleum-based plastics, don’t release carbon dioxide when decomposing. Since hemp plastics are plant-based and non-toxic, if they do end up littering our environment, no animals that come into contact with it will be harmed.
Currently, plastic on land and in the seas are harming wildlife. Hemp plastics will not sit in seabeds for years, being mistaken as food and eaten by animals. If digested, they also will not cause indigestion or other health issues for the animal. As well as being better for our environment, hemp plastic is actually sturdier than other plastics. Hemp plastics are 3.5 times stronger and 5 times stiffer than typical plastics.
Although, like with anything, hemp plastics do have their drawbacks. As of March 2020, there are no facilities in the United States that have the ability to fully compost hemp plastics. Countries like Denmark and Sweden are fully capable of composting hemp plastics because their industrial composting system is “light years ahead” of America’s. Hemp plastics are also more expensive than petroleum plastics. In 2018, hemp plastics cost $2.35 per pound, while petroleum plastics only cost about $1 per pound. To truly compete price-wise, hemp plastic prices would have to drop over a dollar.
People are mostly willing to pay a little extra for the sustainability of hemp, but usually not over twice what “regular” plastic costs. Part of the reason hemp is so expensive is federal regulation of Cannabis Sativa plants. Since marijuana and hemp come from the same plant, the plant is regulated as a dangerous substance. This causes the people and companies growing cannabis, for hemp or marijuana, to receive less federal funds than other farmers. This, however, is changing as many states are making strides toward legalizing as well as destigmatizing both medical and recreational marijuana.
Hemp plastic is a “clean, ecological, sustainable, and renewable alternative” to petroleum-based plastic. While there are some problems with hemp plastics, there’s no denying they could play a vital role in minimizing the insane amount of plastic humans throw away annually.
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