Hemp is a sustainable, giving plant that's been cultivated by humans for thousands of years. The plant provides us with durable fibers, healthful oils, nutritious seeds and more. From the time of our founding fathers up until the late 1930s, industrial hemp was grown on farms throughout the country. After that, the plant was outlawed alongside marijuana without differentiation and because of those laws—we lost much of our country's heritage of growing and processing hemp.
In 2018, a farm bill was signed to help revive the cultivation of industrial hemp. This is outstanding news as we search for alternatives to plastics and other resource-demanding crops to create everyday essentials. Hemp grows with little human or chemical assistance and can produce a diversity of items including bioplastics, biofuels, food, paper, concrete and textiles.
In fact, hemp makes beautiful high-quality fabrics that can be used to create clothing, aprons, bed sheets, napkins and other linens for the home. It produces fabrics with fewer resources than cotton, wool or bamboo (and paper with fewer resources than wood).
Industrial hemp offers many benefits but an obstacle remains—the perception that hemp and marijuana are the same. Industrial hemp does not contain enough THC (the limit is less than 0.3% as set forth by government) to alter consciousness and is used for different purposes than marijuana. There’s no getting high off of hemp. Its purpose is full of utility, allowing us to produce a prolific amount of useful raw materials with less acreage, water and labor used.
When we think about the pervasiveness of plastics and chemicals in so many household goods, we can't fight the optimism about these recent developments and look forward to creating more offerings made with sustainable hemp. By replacing items produced with unhealthy chemicals and materials with more natural ones, we are not only making a choice that positively impacts the environment but also the health of our loved ones. We've most recently begun using hemp to create durable, organic cheesecloths and coffee filters. We are dipping our toes in the waters and hope you will enjoy using our hemp products as much as we enjoy creating them. Do you use hemp products?