Hemp paper becoming more and more popular as the eco-friendly alternative to wood-paper, reducing deforestation and saving a lot of trees. Many studies revealed that if the old paper industries switch to hemp paper, it could help the world to reduce global warming and bad climate change effects. The worldwide hemp cultivation can improve the climate, environment, soils and waters significantely.
Approx 93% of paper comes from trees, but this will change in near future, starting with hemp toilet paper production. First industries have understand the advantages and potentials of the fast growing hemp paper market, not just because of profits and sustainability. The time to change is now, you can be a part of it. Help saving trees, support climate and environmental protection. Use recycled toiled paper until hemp toilet paper will replace it. The use of hemp paper will improve sustainable living and responsible consumption, because hemp is not just a strong symbol for sustainabilty, the using of hemp has a long history with a lot of good experiences. Sad that so many humans and nations have forgotten and missed so much opportunities during the last decades. The Chinese were mostly responsible for the advancement in toilet paper since in the 14th century, the use of hemp is known since 20,000 years! It is time to use finally all the experiences of hemp production and innovative hemp products to improve the economy, society and whole life on planet Earth.
Environmental impacts of paper production
Countless trees being used for toilet paper production, also in rainforest areas. This has a massive impact on these forests and negative consequences for the biodiversity, ecosystems, indigenous peoples and wildlife. The paper industry is partwise responsible for extinction of species and environmental pollution. For processing trees into toilet paper huge amounts of energy and water is needed. The number of people using toilet paper around the world has increased significantly. Toilet tissue accounts for 15 percent of deforestation, of one tree over a thousand rolls of toilet paper can be produced. The paper production requires a large amount of bleach, formaldehyde and organochlorines. Paper accounts for 25% of landfill waste and 33% of municipal waste. 40% or more of all trees are being cut down to make paper. Alone in the USA, approx 20% of all air toxics come from the production of paper pulp. A ton of conventional paper contaminates over 70,000 liters of water. 50% of the waste of businesses is composed of paper. US offices use 12.1 trillion sheets of paper a year. Every minute, Americans throw away 32,280 toilet paper tubes. Almost 270,000 trees are either flushed or dumped in landfills every day. Decomposing papers can produce methane gas, one main cause of global warming.
Trees contain only 30% cellulose, hemp has approx 80% cellulose content. Wood contains 40-50% cellulose, 25-30% hemicellulose, 20-35% lignin, approx 5% resins and oils. It needs much energy and many toxic chemicals to seperate the cellulose from trees. Hemp has lower lignin content as wood. Hemp produces four times more cellulose fibers per hectare compared to trees and takes 4-5 months to grow, while trees take 8-100 years. Hemp plants for hemp paper production don’t need any pesticides to grow, these special plant varities need very little water and have the ability to balance out the nutrients in the soil. Hemp paper is more biodegradable and better to recycle as regular paper.