Table of Contents

• Why We Need Alternatives To Fossil Fuel-Based Plastic
• Hemp Cellulose Fibers A Good Source For Plastic
• The Pros & Limitations of Bioplastic
• The Biggest Barrier To Hemp Plastic
• Where to Buy Hemp Plastic

You may have heard that agricultural hemp, the non-mind-altering cousin of cannabis (commonly known as marijuana), has dozens of potential uses from clothing to paper.

Since virtually all climate scientists agree that we must replace our dependence on fossil fuels, and given that hemp can even make the soil cleaner, it’s surprising that this miracle crop isn’t in wider use.

When we looked into the topic, we found that hemp is already appearing in some commonplace objects, including cars, and could soon find its way into more. But there are also remaining barriers that keep hemp plastics more expensive and less versatile, for now.

Keep reading to learn more about the future of hemp plastic, or scroll to the bottom to find companies making hemp plastic today.

Alternatives Needed As Plastic Pollutes Water & Land

Researchers found 38 million pieces of plastic waste on one uninhabited island in the South Pacific. That’s just one island.

Not only are the harmful effects of global warming increasingly clear, conventional plastics linger in the environment and can even enter the food chain to detrimental effect on human and animal health.

In one especially shocking recent example, researchers from the University of Tasmania and the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds found 38 million pieces of plastic waste on Henderson Island, an uninhabited coral island in the South Pacific.

Jennifer Lavers, a marine scientist from the University of Tasmania, told The Guardian that evidence of human activity litters the beaches of some of the most far-flung islands in the world, regardless of the year, location, or area of the ocean.Topic

As much as 1.9 million of these tiny particles per square mile, according to a 2014 report from National Geographic, compose the infamous “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.””

Hemp Cellulose Fibers A Good Source For Many Plastics

Some of the earliest plastics were made from cellulose fibers obtained from organic, non-petroleum-based sources.

Seshata, a writer at Sensi Seeds in 2014, reported that hemp cellulose, which contains around 65-70% cellulose, can extract and use to make cellophane, rayon, celluloid, and a range of related plastics. Hemp is a good source of cellulose with particular promise due to its relative sustainability and low environmental impact when compared to wood (which contains around 40%), flax (which contains 65-75%), and cotton (which contains up to 90%).

While 100% hemp-based plastic is still a rarity, some “composite bioplastics” — plastics made from a combination of hemp and other plant sources — are already in use. Thanks to their high strength and rigidity, these plastics are currently used in the construction of cars, boats, and even musical instruments.

Bioplastic Is Promising, But Can’t Solve All Our Pollution Problems

Many plastic products are made from polymer resins, including polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, found in everyday products like plastic bottles. While advocates hope to someday see 100% hemp-based plastic bottles on supermarket shelves, the technology just isn’t ready for prime time.

Coca-Cola and other companies have experimented with 100% plant-based bottles, but they currently produce commercially available products using no more than 30% plant-based materials, while using traditional fossil fuel sources for the remaining portion.

The good news is that many corporations are investing heavily in researching replacements to traditional PET. It’s likely the first company to produce a viable commercial product could stand to earn millions.

Unfortunately, even plastic that’s deliberately designed to be biodegradable can still be a source of pollution. Almost nothing biodegrades in a landfill, and hemp microplastics could still cause problems when introduced to the oceans. Biodegradable plastics need to be sent to commercial composting facilities for efficient disposal, and these facilities aren’t available to everyone. In addition to creating better alternatives to plastic, we’ll still need to create more responsible attitudes toward disposable products.

Cost And The War On Drugs Are Biggest Barrier To Hemp Plastic

While fossil fuel costs are kept low with subsidies, hemp products for the most part remain costly luxury items. The U.S. legalized hemp in 2018, after a few years of research into hemp growing. However, decades of drug prohibition mean we’re still lacking much of the infrastructure needed to grow and process hemp into plastic.

Though hemp requires fewer pesticides and has a smaller environmental footprint than many other crops, growing and harvesting it remains labor intensive. Another drawback is that hemp requires “significant fertiliser in some soils, and also has relatively high water requirements,” as noted by Seshata.

However, hemp prices will undoubtedly come down, and technology improve as hemp growing spreads from coast to coast.

Currently, farmers in the United States are growing hemp mostly for CBD, but they are starting to experiment with other varieties that are easier to harvest for their fiber content.

Will we someday use hemp LEGOs? (It’s probably just hype)

One of the most provocative examples of hemp’s potential plastic future could come from LEGOs, the ubiquitous building block toy. which is promising to phase out fossil-fuel based resin by 2030.

“Hemp might just be the cost effective, environmentally sustainable alternative material that LEGO is looking for,” speculated Emily Gray Brosious in a February 2016 investigation from the Sun Times. However, there’s no proof that LEGO is currently seriously considering hemp.

Whether or not we’re ever able to build a spaceship from hemp bricks, the full promise of hemp plastic remains tantalizingly close, but just out of reach.

Where to buy hemp plastic?

We recommend the following brands:

• Green Spring Technologies

Green Spring Technologies creates hemp plastics used in several projects, including hemp plastic pens that several politicians have used to sign hemp legalization bills.

• SANA Packaging

SANA Packaging focuses on creating sustainable packaging for the legal cannabis and hemp industries. They’ve created “doob tubes” and other containers made from both hemp and reclaimed ocean plastic.

• PF DesignLab

PF DesignLab are cutting edge researchers creating plastic and other composite materials from hemp and other plants. Their 3D-printed hemp bicycle frame, an experimental creation showcased at the NoCo Hemp Expo in 2019, amazed us.

• ExHemplary Life (Hemp pastic drinking straws)

Plastic straws made from hemp and two other plant-based materials. These hemp drinking straws feel identical to regular straws, but they start to biodegrade in 120 days. A great example of a hemp solution to an everyday need. These straws are safer than many other replacements to common straws.

The post Hemp Makes Great Plastic, So Why Isn’t Hemp Plastic Everywhere? appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

In episode 66 of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast, our host Matt has a conversation with Ron Vasak-Smith, CEO, and James Eichner, Co-Founder and CSO, of Sana Packaging.

Ron and James met in grad school where they worked on a project together that would turn into a career running a hemp packaging company. The two cofounded Sana Packaging. Today, they work with more than 300 vendors using both hemp plastic and reclaimed ocean plastic as packaging for cannabis and hemp brands.

We’ve visited with Sana Packaging before, including a discussion about sustainable hemp plastic and paper packaging at NoCo Hemp Expo in 2018.

Matt also mentions our 2020 CBD and Hemp Gift Guide and our Populum CBD honey review.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

Subscribe to our show!

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You’ll be the first to hear about everything going on with our special newsletter plus exclusive Patron content including blogs, podcast extras, and more. Visit the Ministry of Hemp on Patreon and become an Insider now!

Hemp Plastic Packaging, With Sana Packaging: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 66 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “Hemp Plastic Packaging”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education.

Matt Baum:
I never went to grad school. I had a lot of friends that did though, and it was a nightmare. It was super difficult, and they were literally living on a shoestring budget while working as hard as they possibly could to hopefully increase their chances of getting a job afterwards. Now imagine that you finished grad school and you had a project you believed in so much that you said, “The easy thing to do would be to go and find a job, but instead we should make a job.” And that is exactly what my guests, Ron Vasak-Smith and James Eichner did. Ron is the CEO and James is the CSO of Sana Packaging. Sana Packaging is an up-and-coming hemp plastic packaging company. They had an idea in grad school and it was centered around cannabis packaging, and the question, why is it all in single-use plastic?

Matt Baum:
There’s plenty of industries out there that are trying to be more environmentally friendly, but it seems like the cannabis industry is intensely aware of their impact on the environment and what they can do to lessen that impact. When these two grad students started approaching smoke shops in their area saying, “Hey, instead of putting everything in plastic, what if we put it in hemp plastic? Or what if we put it in reclaimed plastic?” And they built a customer base, and now they’ve got a successful business. I had a fantastic conversation with these guys that I think you’re really going to enjoy. I know we’ve talked a lot about hemp plastic on the show recently, but this was a chance to talk to two people about how they got a business like this off the ground, and they were completely open and honest and a lot of fun to talk to. This is my conversation with Ron Vasak-Smith and James Eichner of Sana Packaging.

The college origins of Sana Packaging

Matt Baum:
Let’s start at the beginning. You guys met in college.

James Eichner:
At grad school.

Matt Baum:
Grad school. Okay. You met in grad school. And what were you both going to grad school for at the time?

James Eichner:
We were pursuing our MBAs at CU Boulder.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

James Eichner:
And we were both taking a lot of classes together.

Matt Baum:
And at some point you’re like, “You know what? There’s too much single-use plastic in this world.” How does this come up? How does this even start? It’s the kind of thing where… you both look like ski bums to me, no offense, but I know one of you happen to have been skiing today. How do you get in the idea that not only do I want to work on a project where maybe we incorporate hemp into plastic, but we should start a company too. How does this happen?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yeah. I mean, honestly I think James and I both say it comes from being disgruntled consumers, right? We are both in Colorado since legalization happened and consuming cannabis and just personal guilt, honestly. If this is something that I’m going to be consuming, and it’s just another area of waste that I think James and I are… We’re both really fortunate to be in the time at school, when we were just able to have the space to start a business, right. And coming out of grad school, it’s either go find a job or start a job. One of the other.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Starting something sounded a little more intriguing, I guess.

Matt Baum:
But this started as like a college project. Is that right, James?

James Eichner:
Yeah. We were in a sustainable venturing class together and we’d taken a bite. We were both focusing our studies on primarily sustainability and entrepreneurship. So we basically ended up in all the same classes together. And this was the first semester of our last year. And Ron approached me and asked if I wanted to work on this project with him. And Ron hit the nail on the head by saying at the time, it was like, “Hey, I know you’re disgruntled about cannabis packaging as well. Do you think this sounds like a fun idea for a class project?” And at the time it was really just an exploration to see what might be out there material-wise, business model-wise, neither of us had a background in packaging or anything like that. It really was, I don’t know, happenstance.

Matt Baum:
That’s my next question. Neither of you have a background in packaging, did either of you have a background in cannabis other than recreational cannabis or?

James Eichner:
Not beyond the level of small-time college slanging eighths for some extra pocket change-

Matt Baum:
Fair enough, fair enough.

James Eichner:
Really beyond that, no experience in the cannabis industry. Formerly, I came from the social and environmental justice sectors before grad school. Ron came from the liquor industry. I think we’re both… They like to say that there’s a few types of MBA students. There’s people who are there to enhance their careers. There’s people who are there to change their careers. And then there’s folks like Ron and I who just really needed some direction. And we both really love being students. And I think we didn’t know each other beforehand, but I think we were just in similar positions of it’s our mid-twenties, we’ve had a few years after college having fun and now we really need to find some meaningful direction. And I think that’s what, ultimately both drew us back to school.

Matt Baum:
What year was this when this project started? Because now from what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen and talked to other people, even in the last five years, there’s been a lot more of the hemp that you would need to make industrial packaging or even rope or cloth and stuff like that. But literally only in the last five years before that it was a complete desert from what I understand. And even now it’s still not real easy. What did it look like when you started and what year was that?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yes, we got started in 2016.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Creating more sustainable packaging for hemp and cannabis

Ron Vasak-Smith:
I remember I went for grad school. Our class advisor was like, “Hey, you need to go to get more involved in something that you’re interested in.” And there was a hemp conference-

Matt Baum:
Like, “What you doing with your life kid, come on.”

Ron Vasak-Smith:
There was a hemp conference up in Loveland and I was like, “Ah, I like hemp that sounds interesting enough to me.”

Matt Baum:
Was that NOCO in Loveland?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
It wasn’t NOCO, it was like a round table and then it was just probably 50 to 70 people, just Governor Polis was there just gives 2016… The hemp stuff was just getting off the ground.

Matt Baum:
Great.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
And I was there and I was looking around and I was just like, “Seems like, I’m in the right place, right time to do something with this stuff it’s happening. Why not be an on the ground level. And it just coincides, it is really useful for a lot of things. And so why not try to make some packaging out of it.”

Matt Baum:
At that time CBD was booming and really starting to take off. Why didn’t you guys try and jump in on that? I’m not trying to dissuade you anyway. I’m just curious and thinking process, because I’ve interviewed so many people that were like, “I was growing hemp. I started making CBD doing the CBD to…. ” Not as many people have decided to go the industrial route. And I’m just curious, why not go into CBD?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
I think for us, it was honestly like if you’re going to start a business, start a business that’s a problem, right?

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
And not saying that CBD isn’t fixing problems, it is, but for us, this was a problem that we were passionate about. Let the passion drive the ship I think for us in that one, and there’s definitely been times where it’s like, “Oh, CBD seems to be an easier path to profitability than what we have going on.” But the same time I think James probably feels the same way, but we were stoked on what we’re doing.

James Eichner:
Yeah. And I think starting with the initial problem that we set out to explore was why is cannabis packaging and by extension hemp and CBD product packaging, why is it the way it is? Why are people using the materials that they’re using?

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It’s stupid right?

James Eichner:
What’s affecting that. And so we started from the packaging side of things and then got into the hemp side in terms of learning about it as a potential material for packaging, as opposed to coming to the hemp plant and then trying to figure out, okay, well, what do we do with it? We already had that intended use in mind. And luckily it worked out.

Matt Baum:
And James, it didn’t hurt that you came from an environmental law background as well I’m sure.

James Eichner:
No, no, no. Nonprofit. Environmental nonprofit, yeah.

Matt Baum:
So you were making the big bucks in the environmental?

James Eichner:
Yeah. I was really rolling [crosstalk 00:09:46].

Matt Baum:
There you go. All right. It’s all coming together now.

James Eichner:
Still really rolling now.

Sana Packaging’s first hemp plastic packaging prototypes

Matt Baum:
Oh, I can tell. Just by the way, you should see where these guys live. It’s palatial. It’s an audio podcast, so they can’t see it. You do the project, you find out this can work. We can actually make this happen. What happens next? Then you’re just like, screw it, let’s start a company?

James Eichner:
Ron, did we have a 3D printed prototype by the end of that semester, by the class projector?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yeah. We were doing the New Venture Challenge along with it, right?

James Eichner:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Because there’s some cash prize involved in that. And I think-

James Eichner:
We didn’t wait in back.

Matt Baum:
Fair enough.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
… coinciding with the one class and we had another class project and we were doing in that venture challenge. Just, I mean, like when you’re in school, right? There’s the most resources around you you’re going to have, right?

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
We were able to rely on people much smarter than us, and had skillsets in areas that we didn’t to help us along. We had a prototype made basically for the class project. Fortunately, a company was making 3D printable hemp plastics.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
To make a hemp prototype packaging product wasn’t too far of a stretch. And I had an idea of what design would have some sort of locking mechanism in it and stuff. And we tried out some stuff. And so at the end of the class we did have a prototype.

Matt Baum:
Tell me about the prototype. What was it?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
It was our first, basically a pretty similar to what our first product is, honestly. I don’t have any right here to show you, but it’s our box that you see on our website basically. And we sat down with a engineering student who knew CAD/CAM and was able to sketch something out that the next step-

Matt Baum:
Right, the math.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
The math [crosstalk 00:11:43].

James Eichner:
Yeah. Shout out to a Swapneil Kumar for being our first product designer.

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome. You said you used a 3D printer, so you’re using these are the ones that use the hemp plastic that also has regular plastic in it as well, right?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yes. And it’s actually a really similar formulation to what we’re using currently because PLA, which is the plant-based polymer typically comes from corn or sugarcane feed stock.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Has a lower melting temperature than a traditional petroleum-based plastic. And so with that lower melting temp, it’s a hemp and corn-based composite basically.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
So it really similar to what we use now. And that was the, “Hey, this is a step in that direction. Our products we want to make them a hundred percent plant-based.” And so this was a pathway towards that.

Matt Baum:
That’s one of the things I’ve talked to some people about hemp plastics about. The PLAs especially while they do break down better, they can leave microplastics and stuff like that. You’ve moved now to a full plant-based, is that correct?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yeah. It’s a biocomposite 30% hemp, 30% PLA. Still dealing with that issue with any polymer is going to leave behind microplastics. It just matters what happens to it, how they’re digested, where they’re digested. And we as a company coming a long way from four years ago, James and I have learned so much about the actual systems within the waste space. And so what actually happens to a product afterwards is the stuff that we would like to see more focus on.

Matt Baum:
Right. It compostable what you’re dealing with?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Not certified compostable, we use compostable inputs, but due to the wall thickness of our product, we don’t actually meet the breakdown timeframe-

Matt Baum:
Fair enough.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
… which is 90 days for that. And so this is basically our first product to market and we know that there’s so much more that we can do moving forward. And so that’s just what we’re currently working on that [inaudible 00:13:59].

Getting started in hemp plastic packaging

Matt Baum:
Let’s talk about your current product. James, tell me about what you guys have going on right now?

James Eichner:
We went to CanopyBoulder, an accelerator in Boulder.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

James Eichner:
And that’s how we got our first bit of funding. And Ron put in some of his personal money as well. And that’s what got us off to the races. And we Sana Packaging became a full-time endeavor for us. Really the second we finished school and the accelerator in the span of the same week, I think. And had a little bit of money in the bank for the company. And just like how the class project went well, so we decided to apply to an accelerator.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

James Eichner:
Accelerator went well, so we decided to continue with the project after the accelerator and things kept slowly falling into place, but it took us about a full year after we finished the accelerator to get our first real working prototypes, not just done, but child-resistant certified and then building out a production scale mold. And then we launched a pilot program in the summer of 2018 with around 20 pilot customers and went through a six months learning period with them because beyond just making a product, a big part of packaging is the customer service that you’re providing to folks.

Matt Baum:
Oh yeah.

James Eichner:
Learning the ins and outs of how to communicate with our manufacturing partners, our supplier partners, how to communicate with our customers, how to make sure that things show up on time. All that behind the scenes operational stuff was hammered out in this six month customer-learning period, along with just ramping up our production and making sure that we can truly start mass producing something made out of a hemp biocomposite. And that was in 2019, beginning of 2019 that we really opened our doors up for sales. And now we’re up to… Started 2019 with two products and 20 customers now coming to the end of 2020, we’re up to seven products. One which we just launched earlier this week, soon to be eight, we’re going to launch our eighth product just before the end of the year. And we’re up to a little over 370 customers now and so it’s-

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

James Eichner:
… crazy how far we’ve come.

Matt Baum:
You guys, rather than the other posh mucks that had to get out of grad school and go find work, you’re like, “Let’s just make a job. We’ll make our damn own job.” Which is harder, sure. But you did it. Tell me about your first customers. I’m sorry. Tell me your first customers, like the people when you came out, like those first 20 people, what did you guys do? Did you just like show up places and be like, “See this box, this box is made of hemp, it’s not cardboard, it’s not plastic.” What was that like? Who were they?

James Eichner:
It was a lot of door-to-door.

Matt Baum:
Really? Literally like, “Hello, my name is Ron and I’m James. And we’re here to talk to you about Sana Packaging.”

Ron Vasak-Smith:
When we look back on it now it is like, no. I would say it’d be very difficult to do what we did in any other industry, right? Like the cannabis industry just getting going. And you could just walk into a dispensary and be like, “Hey, hemp. We’re making hemp packaging.” Right?

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
And then the people were like, it would get like an eye raise and maybe interest in it. We didn’t have the product to sell at the time. It was very much like when you’re going through the startup phase, you’re fundraising, you’re trying to basically convince customers, but then you’re trying to convince investors and such that someone’s going to actually buy this product, right?

Matt Baum:
Right. But you’re not just convincing them that like, “Hey, you should buy this product.” You’re also having to convince them, like, “You should spend a little more money on your packaging for a more responsible product.” Right?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s the tough thing, right to go into a business and tell them, “Hey, you need to spend more money on product that… ” It’s a tough conversation. And I think that was for us at the beginning, we really had to have that passion. Just button up the shirt and go and knock on as many doors as possible and be like, “Hey, is this interesting to you? Would you buy this?”

Matt Baum:
And again it probably wouldn’t work in any other industry. It’s not like you can walk into Ford and be like, “Hey, instead of using all that plastic in your car… ” For the cannabis industry, I can see them being like, “Wait a minute. Why are we putting this stuff in plastic or cardboard or a garbage.” When you’re supposed to be a little more ecologically friendly. I would guess in that industry.

James Eichner:
We really owe so much to those early pilot customers. Because when we first approached all of them, it was similar. We were approaching investors, we were approaching potential customers. And with everyone, it was selling them on a hope and a dream. With investors it was, if you give us money, we will make this and we’re confident that we’ll be able to sell it for this amount. And it will be a good use of your money to invest at us, who by the way have never done anything.

Matt Baum:
Two grad students with a dream.

James Eichner:
And then with these potential customers, it was approaching folks and saying, “Here’s a prototype. If we’re able to mass produce this four to six months from now, will you commit to being a pilot customer with us?” And again, selling someone on a hope and a dream and something that doesn’t physically exist yet. And as you’re trying to connect to the dots of getting money in, investors want to see that you have potential customers lined up, potential customers want to see that you actually have a product to sell. And so you’re trying to line up all of these things. And I’m trying to think of who some of those early customers are. I know there’s-

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Shout out to Smokey’s 420 in Fort Collins. They were our first, first customer.

Matt Baum:
Nice.

James Eichner:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
So they’ll still have that first check.

Investing in hemp plastic packaging

Matt Baum:
It’s one thing to walk into Smokey’s in Fort Collins and be like, “Hey bros, we should all be nicer to the earth, right.” And they’re like, “Yeah, bro.” And you’re like, “Well, check this out.” What were the investors like? That’s got to be a whole different shebang there. I mean, when you start talking to money guys, what were they like? Who were your first investors? I mean, I know Ron, you had to throw some of your money in there. I hope you got it back. It seems like you probably did it by this point.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
We’re working on that.

James Eichner:
We’re working on it.

Matt Baum:
What was it like approaching investors with this idea?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
I think first being able to go… James and I as being two guys leaving grad school who hadn’t done this before, being able to go into business accelerator like CanopyBoulder was focused in the cannabis industry and had the framework set up for us as far as this is how you will approach, this is how you could approach these people. And so I think that was super useful for us. But I mean, I think James and I would just… It’s one of those things you got to learn on the fly, right?

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
You just put yourself out there, right? You don’t know how you’re going to be received by these people. There’s a lot of perceived, critiquing going on around your business model, how you’re presenting it. Early on a lot of unsolicited advice that you just got to-

Matt Baum:
I’m sure.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
… take it in and be-

Matt Baum:
You can’t wear that. You’re going to wear some money dress like that.

James Eichner:
Ron’s name was actually changed from Ronnie to Ron by potential investors.

Matt Baum:
Oh, I totally believe it.

James Eichner:
When I met Ron, he went by Ronnie. And he’s gone by Ronnie, his whole life, so a friend calls him Ronnie, his friends call him Ronnie. And we just started interacting with these potential investors. And they skew male.

Matt Baum:
No.

James Eichner:
They skew a little older.

Matt Baum:
No. You’re kidding me. Let me guess a little white too, I would guess.

James Eichner:
Yeah. Pretty pasty like what you’ve just seen here.

Matt Baum:
Okay. I think I know what you’re talking about now.

James Eichner:
Yeah. And literally overnight, Ronnie became Ron because he just introduced himself, “Hi, my name’s Ronnie.” And they’d be like, “Nice to meet you, Ron.”

Matt Baum:
Yeah. That’s a kid’s name. I’m not going to call you that. All right. Anyway, where were we?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yeah, exactly what I heard that’s a child’s name, so you get that enough times you’re like, “Oh, we’re trying to make good money here.”

Matt Baum:
Right.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Changed the name to see if that works too.

James Eichner:
Just about investors again, real quick though, it’s similar to those early customers where you get really lucky and you find these handful of people that believe in what you’re doing. Like Smokey’s 420 in Fort Collins or Bailey and Murphy in Oregon, they were another early one. We had a few early investors as well. I don’t want to name names, but there’s one individual who he’s placed capital with us a few times in a few different seed rounds that we’ve done. And not huge sums but he’s been the first money in on each of those rounds and-

Matt Baum:
That counts [inaudible 00:23:53].

James Eichner:
… if you’ve ever fund raised before that first money in is the hardest, because no one wants to be the first.

Matt Baum:
Everybody is waiting to see if someone is going to throw money [crosstalk 00:24:02].

James Eichner:
Everyone’s looking for people around them to be like, “Hey, this is a good idea. We’re all doing this.”

Matt Baum:
Right.

James Eichner:
That first person’s really taken a big leap and this person did that for us twice. And it’s not the most money we’ve ever gotten, but it’s some of the most important money we’ve ever gotten.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I would argue it counts way more. Just because someone else sees, “Oh, I’m not the only idiot that’s going to throw money at this. Someone else did it for us. So. Okay.”

Ron Vasak-Smith:
And even more than that, like the confidence boost that it gives you.

Matt Baum:
Totally.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
From a fundraising standpoint, right?

Matt Baum:
Totally.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
It’s like when you go fishing, right? You might not know there’s any fish in there, so you’re just like, “Let the second get a bite.” You’re like, “All right, first this is worthwhile, right? We got a chance here.”

Matt Baum:
Back to where we were saying about going in and talking to these investors, you guys had never done it before, so you don’t know the wrong way to do it, let alone the right way. Let’s just do it, right?

James Eichner:
Yeah.

Growing Sana Packaging

Matt Baum:
That’s great. You go from 20 customers to 300 customers, you said you just unveiled a new product last week. What was that?

James Eichner:
That was a V2 or I don’t know if V2 is the right word, but it’s a second iteration of our reclaimed ocean plastic pre-roll tube. The first iteration that we did was in the same production scale mold as our hemp biocomposite pre-roll tube. We knew when we launched the… Because using the same mold for both products was an easy way to have a new product, use a new material, get something else to market. But we knew from the get-go that down the road, we would be able to lighten the amount of material used just because the wall thicknesses are a little thicker than necessary for the reclaimed ocean plastic material, because they were designed to run this biocomposite.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

James Eichner:
This has been a long time coming for us and we’re really excited about this product. It’s our first pop-top design. Our previous products had… They were two piece molds, meaning that the lid of the pre-roll tube is a whole separate piece.

Matt Baum:
[crosstalk 00:26:24].

James Eichner:
And again that original design was made to work with the hemp biocomposite. Now we’ve moved over to a pop-top for the reclaimed ocean plastic. We’re able to reduce our material use by 25% while also increasing the length of the pre-roll tube from 110 millimeters to 116 millimeters. And also moving into a larger production scale mold. All of that combined also allowed us to drop our price by 30% compared to our previous reclaimed ocean plastic pre-roll tube. It’s a huge step forward for us. And we hope it’ll be a real game changer just because it’s a really common form factor. And because it’s that much more price competitive, we really hope that it’s a no-brainer for folks that perhaps earlier were a little scared off by the inevitable price premium that comes with sustainability.

Matt Baum:
Potentially stupid question, where does one go to pick up ocean-reclaimed plastic? I mean, coming from Nebraska, I would know where to start, but are you hooked up with a group that is literally pulling plastic out of the ocean? Or are there suppliers? I have no clue how this works.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
We’re working with a network called Oceanworks and they basically have network of processor, cleaners, and sorters that they work with to go out and certify this material. Ocean plastic, like any other products, recycled product, there’s the varying levels and degrees of the quality, types and all of that.

Matt Baum:
Of course.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Beyond just saying, it’s ocean plastic there’s certain grades of material that we need, certain type of material. We have some needs around cleanliness, so FDA approved material.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
And so making sure that that is all up to snuff and basically that our manufacturers are getting what we say it is, and the customer is getting what we say it is. And just a way that we can ensure the quality of the product.

Matt Baum:
And I assume it’s just very similar to recycling plastic more or less. You’re melting it down, you’re pouring it into your mold and it cools and I mean, is it more or less work than just bringing in new plastic?

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Yeah. I think not necessarily more or less work, from a theoretic level you’re correct, right? Materials being extruded into a mold.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
But the biggest problem is the quality of the material, right?

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
If with virgin material designed to perform a very specific way, if the recycled content or reclaim content has any variability in it, that variability might show up in the part.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
This is one of the big reasons why you don’t see a lot of recycled and reclaimed material used amongst major consumer products because in the traditional world where price is everything, if you’re going to get let’s just say two out of every 1000 units have a blemish or something, right?

Matt Baum:
Right.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
That might be enough to tip the scale, to say, “Let’s work with virgin material that oftentimes it’s going to be less expensive.”

Matt Baum:
Yeah. That’s the nightmare of recycling, right? Because my wife and I recycle, my neighbors all recycle, and we’re sending all this plastic to be recycled and you don’t have major plastic corporations using recycled plastics for just that reason.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
I mean, this is the big thing with it, right? If we’re going to recycle, we have to close that loop the best we can. The backend of that is that companies are going to be working with this material. They’re going to pay more for it. They’re going to deal with the inconsistencies that could show up. But that’s what we’re doing as a company, right? Like this idea of producer responsibility versus consumer responsibility, right?

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Ron Vasak-Smith:
Both of those have to work together. The consumer has to recycle the producer has to work with the material that has been recycled.

Matt Baum:
Well, and let’s be real. I’m not going to go to the grocery store to pick up my detergent or something and be like, “Oh, well that, bottle’s not as orange as I remember. I think I’ll buy the competition.” No, and nobody cares. It’s preposterous. But we got off subject a little bit there. I think it’s amazing what you’re doing. Don’t get me wrong, but what is next for Sana Packaging? Where do we go from here? I mean, you don’t have to divulge secrets or anything, but-

Ron Vasak-Smith:
The big trade secrets [crosstalk 00:31:04].

Matt Baum:
… if you want to break some news.

James Eichner:
I’d say we’ve always been mission driven, but when we started the company, we were very focused on trying to tap into innovative material types and more sustainable material types. But the big thing that we’ve learned over the last, what is it? Four years, three or four years, is that materials and material innovation are really just one piece of the puzzle.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

James Eichner:
In terms of where Sana Packaging is going, we ultimately view ourselves as material agnostic, meaning we always want to be able to tap into what we believe to be the most sustainable and best material available for the use cases that we’re trying to use it for. And the other big piece of the puzzle is our waste management infrastructure and not just waste management infrastructure, but all the other infrastructure around packaging and in our case specifically cannabis packaging. When we think of what’s next for us, it’s how do we affect that larger systemic change that needs to happen within the cannabis industry and the waste management infrastructure that aids the cannabis industry. And how do we change? How do we shift cannabis packaging from a linear economic model where it goes, take, make, dispose to a circular economic model where at the end of a product’s useful life, you’re recovering it as much as possible, reusing materials as much as possible, regenerating natural systems.

Matt Baum:
Right.

James Eichner:
And that’s what’s next is how to figure out how to make truly circular cannabis packaging. Because every step of the way we’re making incremental change towards it and moving toward circularity. But the big question is how are we going to make that ultimate leap and put those pieces into place and leverage our position in the industry to try and make that happen.

Matt Baum:
And once you build that model, I mean, it’s easy people here will what are they doing in cannabis industry, whatever. But once you build that model and show, you can do it in this industry. There is no reason why you can’t apply that across the board to any industry. There’s no reason why once you get a model like that working, we can’t go into Walmart and buy groceries in a bag made of hemp plastic, or something, or reclaimed plastic, or get your food from McDonald’s in a responsible package. I mean, that’s ultimately where this goes. I’m not saying go shop at Walmart, go shop at McDonald’s, but it’s models like these when you can scale up and change the frigging world. And I think it’s amazing what you guys are doing. Not bad for a couple of stoner bombs from college that came up with a project. Nicely done for a couple of grad students.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
I will have links to Sana Packaging and more about Ron and James in the notes for this episode. Speaking of which here at the Ministry of Hemp, we believe that a more accessible world is a better world for all. So you will find a full written transcript for this episode in the show notes as well.

Matt Baum:
Thanks again for hanging out with me for another episode, I hope you learned something and you might have questions about what you heard or you might have questions about something you heard on another episode, or maybe you just have questions. Call me, let’s talk about it. 402 819-6417 is the number to call and you can leave your message. And we will answer your questions right here on the show. We do Q&A shows where I bring in other people that worked for ministryofhemp.com, my buddy Kit, he’s the editor in chief, Desiree, our videographer, and sometimes Drew our brand manager all show up. It’s a great time. And we love to answer your questions.

Matt Baum:
You can also shoot me an email with an MP3 or just written question to matt@ministryofhemp.com. Speaking of ministryofhemp.com, head over there and check out our review of a CBD honey put out by one of our favorite brands, Populum they were delicious CBD raw honey. We’ve also got your CBD gift guide for Christmas. It’s coming down to the wire. If you’re going shopping, you’re going to want to get it done now. Check out our CBD gift guide. And we have a great guest post about wholesale hemp flour, and about getting into the CBD business, if you’re interested in that.

Matt Baum:
And if you like the content on this show and the stuff that we put up on our site, the best way you can help us is to head to patreon/ministryofhemp and become a Ministry of Hemp Insider. Any amount you give, makes you an insider, gets you access to podcast extras, to early articles and all kinds of extra stuff that we put up on our site and on our show, but more important than that, it helps us to bring hemp education to people that want to hear it and needs to hear it. We’re trying to change the world here folks. We need your help, go to patreon/ministryofhemp become a Ministry of Hemp Insider. That about does it for me, and I like to get out of here the same way every week, by saying, remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions will you? This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp Podcast signing off.

The post Hemp Plastic Packaging: The Promise Of Hemp Plastic With Sana Packaging appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

In episode 63 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, our host Matt Baum talks about biodegradable hemp plastic with Carolyn Virostek, a distributor for Exhemplarylife.com.

Carolyn talks about the benefits of biodegradable hemp plastic vs other plastics. Some plastics that creators claim are more environmentally friendly actually break down into microplastics. The conversation covers single-use plastics like the hemp straws and how hemp and other plants like flax can be used for much more than making smoothies. Matt also mentions this Stanford University report on plastic straws at the beginning of the episode.

About Exhemplary Life

Exhemplary Life was created out of a desire to advocate for hemp and products made from this indigenous plant. The hemp flowers, seeds, and stalks can make many products such as clothing, shoes, accessories made with Hemp fibers for more natural and eco-friendly products. The oils of the plant can be used for food and extracts as a huge health benefit of our bodies Endocannabinoid System.

Part of the advocacy is in educating people about the needs and health benefits of hemp products as well as its eco-friendly sustainability. While educating people about the benefits of hemp people would ask us where they could get quality hemp products. Their plan is to provide more products made from hemp as the industry develops new items. Since the U.S. has finally made hemp legal to grow and cultivate we will see more and more hemp goods being made available. At first, they’ve focused on providing high-quality clothing, salves, lotions, extracts, oils and foods with more products added over time.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

Subscribe to our show!

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Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider and help spread the good word!

If you believe hemp can change the world then help us spread the word! Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider when you donate any amount on our Patreon page!

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Hemp Straws And The Sustainability Of Hemp: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 63 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “Hemp Straws And The Sustainability Of Hemp”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education. Welcome back to the Ministry of Hemp podcast. And I know we’ve been talking about hemp plastic a lot on the show, but there’s been a lot coming out about hemp plastic, and bio-plastics, that’s really exciting, today on the show we’re going to talk about some new completely biodegradable hemp plastics that are out there that hopefully are going to take the place of a lot of single use plastics on the market right now. But before we get to that, let’s talk about straws for a second.

Matt Baum:
Did you know that almost 500 million straws are used a day in the United States, and of those 500 million I’m going to say close to a 100% only get used once and then thrown away. Now this plastic finds its way into the ocean, into our landfills all over the place. And it’s not good for you. It’s not good for animals. It’s not good for the planet. It’s not good for anyone.

Matt Baum:
And while 500 million straws can sound like a crazy, huge number. And it is, that makes up for less than 1% of plastic pollution, which is sheer insanity. This information is coming from an article from stanford.edu, and I’ll have a link to it in the show notes, but it blows my mind. Now the good news is, there are States like Washington that have banned plastic straws. McDonald’s is moving away from plastic straws, Starbucks also did the same thing this year, and look, I don’t think paper straws are the answer either because they’re awful.

Matt Baum:
They just melt, and cutting down trees to make paper straws is not an answer. Now, there are people out there making a completely biodegradable hemp plastic. And today we start off talking about straws. My conversation today is with, Carolyn Virostek. She’s the distributor for exhemplarylife.com, who deals in all cool hemp products, including hemp straws.

Matt Baum:
And we just happen to give some away on our Instagram and at the end of the show, stay tuned because I get to reveal the winners on the end of the show. Super fun. Right? And I’m going to have a coupon code for you guys for 25% off your purchase at exhemplarylife.com. So, stay tuned for the end of the show for all of that, but first here’s my conversation with Carolyn about hemp plastic, hemp straws, and how we can make a more responsible and biodegradable plant-based plastic.

Hemp straws and the problem of plastic pollution

Matt Baum:
Carolyn, before we get into it, we’re going to talk about, I don’t even know what to call it quite honestly. You sent me these straws, and I looked at them and I said, “These look like plastic. They feel like plastic, when I drink out of them it feels like plastic in my mouth, but it’s not plastic. What am I holding here? What did I drink through the other day?”

Carolyn Virostek:
They absolutely do look like plastic. They feel like it, they don’t hold up as long as plastic, which is what the purpose of them is, because we don’t want them to last a 100-1000 years, our environment and our animals don’t need that. They are hemp-based product made out of hemp biomass. And then, we have two other products that we don’t actually divulge it’s proprietary, but none of it is PLA, which is something that a lot of plastics end up using if they’re trying to be compostable or biodegradable.

Carolyn Virostek:
Especially in the hemp industry, or really in a lot of the plastic industry where they’re trying to come up with alternative to fossil fuel plastics. They will use PLAs, sometimes a PHA, but the PLAs are the biggest ones, which, I don’t want to sound like I’m negative against PLAs, they’re great because they are a plant base, but they still have their issues with how they break down, how they need to be composted and broken down in the right environment.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, real quick, can I ask you, what is a PLA? I have no idea, or a PLH? No clue.

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s an organic based polylactic acid, that is used as a binder within plastics as we call them. And plastic really is a term really basically, of anything that has the malleability that we can use in different products where it’s going to hold up under different circumstances. We have hard plastic, soft plastic, et cetera, but PLA is going to be an organic compound that is used as a binding agent.

Matt Baum:
Same with PLH?

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. A lot of times it’s made out of corn starch, sugar cane, and now they’re even starting to make it out of other products too, even coconut shells. So PLAs can be made from many different products.

Matt Baum:
But in these PLA products, they still have plastic in them. They’re still petroleum-based plastics that these are incorporated into?

Carolyn Virostek:
No. That’s the difference, PLAs won’t have the petroleum base. It is an advantage to use the PLAs, because we’re not using the petroleum-base, because that’s a completely different animal. And that’s what we’re trying to get away from, because petroleum-based takes so much more energy to produce, actually just to extract from the earth, to refine it and then produce it.

Carolyn Virostek:
That in itself is toxic to the environment as well as the actual product. And then what do you do with that product when you’re done with it? After drinking that water bottle that you just had for maybe an hour, what are you going to do with it? And what’s going to happen to it? Or you throw it in the garbage and it’s there for 1000 years.

Matt Baum:
Right. Aliens, discover it after human society has been wiped from the earth and go, “Well, I wonder what they did with this trash.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. Why did they make these? What’s this purposed for? It really does make you think about, “Well, do we really need all these plastics all the time? And how long is it going to be in our environment?” And we’re finding that it’s not good, that we are finding huge portions of it on islands where humans have not even inhabited, but here these plastics are washing up on shores.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. And like rafts of plastic that gather in the middle of the ocean and stuff, it’s insane, it’s absolutely insane.

Carolyn Virostek:
It is. And we just keep making more and more plastic, because the oil industry puts a lot of money into it and they want to keep it going.

Matt Baum:
It’s cheap too. So why not?

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s very cheap according to them. Now that brings into another conversation I have, we can say, “Yeah, it’s cheap, plastics are cheap.” And that’s the comparison between our straws, is that, our straws are more expensive than plastic. And that’s one of the issues that people have with it. And my comment as well, “You can either pay for it now, or you can pay for it later.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Because when you use plastics that are oil-based, first of all, you do pay for it. In that you’re extracting a finite material from the earth. We can’t make more of that. Whereas hemp, we can grow it every couple of months, every few months we’ve got a whole new crop.

Matt Baum:
Exactly.

Carolyn Virostek:
And it also is great for the environment. We’re not causing more toxicity by growing hemp, whereas oil, how it’s even processed and refined that takes toxicity, puts toxic waste into the environment. So right then and there, we do want to look at the cost to the environment, just in bringing it to the market. And then when we have a product just like in plastics, in our bottles or our hemp straws, one, we find it out in the rivers or out in the creeks or wherever we are.

Matt Baum:
Or in the bellies of dead animals even.

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly, in the ocean, and then we’re losing animals because they’re eating it. It goes back to where we find the material, we have to go and get it. You’ve got to bring it in from the trash that it is, the pollution that it is. Then we have to find a way to process it. Process it into a new material to make something new.

Carolyn Virostek:
If we do that, a lot of times, many countries still burn all their plastics. So we’re increasing the toxic waste into the environment by burning it. But for them, it’s a lot easier to be able to just burn it than to actually process it into something new.

Matt Baum:
It’s cheap, right?

Carolyn Virostek:
That’s what they say, it’s cheap.

Matt Baum:
You can put those blinders on and just say, “Well, yeah, but it’s less expensive, and it does the job. And I don’t have to think about it when it gets thrown away.” But that’s not the case. Just like you said, we are pulling oil out of the earth. We are then doing something toxic to the environment to create this plastic straw that you use one time, you literally use one time and then you throw it away. And then the earth pays for it for 1000 damn years.

The problem with PLAs

Matt Baum:
We know we’re trying to get away from that, and PLH is a step better, but it’s not as good as what’s being used in these hemp straws. Now, what is the difference? You said PLH, doesn’t quite break down the same basically. It’s less durable, or it’s more durable, before we get into what’s in the hemp straws, What is the problem with PLAs?

Carolyn Virostek:
The problem with that is, and even some chemists are still debating on what it is, as far as, are PLAs biodegradable, or are they just degradable?

Matt Baum:
So we don’t even know?

Carolyn:
There’s debate, you can get one scientist. “Well, no, it’s absolutely biodegradable.” And another one will go, “It breaks down, but it’s not really biodegradable.” If we even look at that, if I can just come up with a biodegradable versus compostable, that’s the other thing, if something is deemed certified compostable, it’s also biodegradable, but something that’s biodegradable is not compostable.

Matt Baum:
Yes. Not all things that are biodegradable are compostable, but all things that are compostable are biodegradable?

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. And with the PLAs, they do debate on that. And we can say it does degrade, but it just takes longer. So PLAs can biodegrade in, as I’ve seen it as short as four years, but the average is about 80 years. So again, it will break down and it doesn’t have the toxic residue that an oil-based plastic will, if it were to break down, but it still has a cost to the environment, because these PLAs as a plastic, quote-unquote, “Break down into smaller finer materials, which then become microplastics.”

Carolyn Virostek:
And those microplastics are what we’re finding in the billions in the oceans and our creeks, and even in the glaciers, and even at the top of the mountains where it’s actually raining and snowing down in those particles, they’re such fine particles. We do find plastic bottles, plastic bags, in the stomachs of the sea life.

Carolyn Virostek:
But we’re also finding these microplastics in the smaller forms. They can’t eat a big bottle, but they’re still eating these microplastics thinking that they’re food, and they’re either dying from it or they’re carrying it on to us. So even our urine, they’re finding huge amounts of microplastics in our system.

Matt Baum:
So does it break down? Yes. But it breaks down just into really small plastic. It doesn’t break down into something that is combustible even, or compostable. It’s just really, really little pieces. And that’s not an answer either. We don’t want that.

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. With compostable, something that’s compostable, that’s going to break down and may compost. Then we can use that, that’s something usable, but when it just breaks down into microplastics, into smaller parts of it, it’s not usable and it’s not ideal.

Matt Baum:
And still dangerous.

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s still dangerous. I don’t want to make it out to be this horrible thing, because it’s a lot better than using the fossil fuels, but we still have to move a little further along to make it the right product.

Hemp straws & how they’re made

Matt Baum:
So tell me about the hemp straws then. What are these made of, and how does something that feels so completely plastic, both in your mouth and in your hand and does the job, how is it completely compostable?

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, the biggest thing is the plant, hemp. You and I both are advocates of the hemp plant.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely, it’s why we are here.

Carolyn Virostek:
Because, it can do so much for us. How many plants do we know that you could use the seeds, the fiber and the pulp, and make so many products? One of the big taglines is that, hemp can make 25,000 products. Well, that’s actually a disservice. I think it can make a lot more than 25,000 products.

Matt Baum:
Oh yeah. Totally agree.

Carolyn Virostek:
Hemp is a cellulose based product as a plant, it has cellulose just like sugar, just like the sugar cane would, even has cellulose. These are products that are used in quote-unquote “Plastics to make material.” Because, cellulose is the binding agent. It helps to support that. And as you look at hemp, the stalks and the biomass, it’s very fibrous, it’s much more fibers than wood, and that’s what gives us its strength too.

Carolyn Virostek:
If we can make hemp into say, a fine powder, and compress it under heat with some other elements that are plant-based too, is what we use. Those can actually form a very strong material in a very simple way. It can be complicated, but then it can also be very simplified. You can watch YouTube videos, where people make this in their kitchen, where they take cornstarch and water, heat it up and they make a little plastic out of it. So, hemp that’s what we’re doing also, is we’re taking hemp and making it very fine powder, like a starch and adding other materials to help bind it. And then it gets heated up and formed into straws.

Matt Baum:
So, it literally melts basically, and the cellulose works with the other binders and holds it together. And at that point you can form it just like plastic? You put it around a dowel and it becomes a straw?

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly. Exactly. They do make them into little pellets, just like they do with the plastic, so that they can put it into the extruder machines, so they don’t have to adapt the machines for the product, but the product gets adapted for the machines. With that, then the pellets are made very small, just so they can be added to the machine. And then they get melted within that process, going through the extruder and that’s what helps to make them, now there are many products that can be made out of it too. And that’s in the futures bags, cups, you name it.

Matt Baum:
Sure. Sure. Now let me ask you, is clear a problem. Because I’ve heard in hemp plastics clear is very difficult, because of the nature of the plant green and brown, super easy?

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly, super easy.

Matt Baum:
But clear seems to be a problem still?

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. Yeah. You can’t really do a clear straw, but you can do an opaque straw or we do add colors and the colors that we add are standard colors that we are able to use in the industry that are, I’m not gonna say completely plant-based natural, but they are more natural. They are able to use them to color it into any color that you need. But people do like the natural color as a hemp straw though.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It makes sense that it’s green. It comes from hemp. I like it. It differentiates it, if nothing else. Let me ask, I take my hemp straw, I drink my drink, I throw my hemp straw away or I compost it. I actually have a compost pile in my backyard. Take it out, throw in the compost pile. How long before it’s gone?

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, it depends on your compost really, because anytime you… I would love to say that every single one’s going to compost in a certain time, but it’s going to be different. In fact, industrial composting is going to be the fastest and the best because they’re going to control the oxygen in there. They’re going to control the heat and even the microbes and all the little critters that are going to go in there and eat it up to make it into compost. How that’s going to be in your compost, is going to vary. How’s it going to change from day to day, let alone month to month, with all the different seasons.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, let’s say industrial compost, a best case scenario?

Carolyn Virostek:
We’ve seen them biodegrade completely in 120 days.

Matt Baum:
That’s amazing. That’s like paper.

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. When we look at the compost, there’s really nothing that’s in there. There’s no residue. That’s the other great thing, is that a lot of times you will find some residue from that because of some of the materials that they use gunks up the systems, and facilities that are compostable facilities are very picky about what they allow in, because it will mess up their whole system.

Carolyn Virostek:
And so, you have to be certified through the BPI world compostable and biodegradable. They will give you certifications on your product, which we do have. In fact, here in Pittsburgh, we have a company that does do the compost, and they actually go around to the restaurants and bring in all their compostable material, and they found our straws and they contacted us because they said, “Are you guys really compostable? Can you share that with me?” And I said, “Yes, it is.” And gave him the information.

Carolyn Virostek:
Because he said, “Otherwise we have to pull it out.” Because it’ll just gunk up the system. I said, “No, you really will not have an issue with it.” And that’s something that you can’t say about every product that is a PLA, and even PLAs if you send them in the landfill, people think, “Oh, we’re in the landfill, if it’s biodegradable it will breakdown.” Actually it won’t, because landfills seal them up and you have no oxygen, without oxygen it’s not going to break down, and it can actually create more methane gas. It’s same as a plastic, if it’s trying to break down in that environment, because it’s not the appropriate environment.

Matt Baum:
So, I say it’s like for a month and we say no more food garbage, your food garbage goes over here. And we’ll compost that because it’s so much methane builds up when you seal it and put it away in an airtight coffin. You’ve basically created a bomb, a methane bomb at that point. Is this different than other hemp plastics? Because, I’ve spoken to some people recently on the show and brought up that like, “Oh yeah, I just did an interview with some people about hemp plastic and stuff.”

Is hemp plastic really sustainable?

Matt Baum:
And a couple of them are like, “Oh, hemp plastic? Huh. You know about that?” And I was like, “Well, I don’t follow. What do you mean?” And they’re like, “It’s a lot of hemp filler, and it’s still a lot of plastic.” Is this different than that? Have you encountered that elsewhere? And are they lying to me? Because, I’ve bought some hemp plastic products and felt really good. Like, “It’s made of hemp plastic.” Does that mean that there are different levels of this, and you’ve got to watch out for it basically?

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. If you look at say the 3d printers, which is a lot of hemp plastic, which again, I think it’s great that they’re using hemp and they’re wanting to make things compostable and biodegradable. But a lot of them are going to be with a PLA or PHA, which is another one too, which is actually really good. I think it would be better if we did start using PHAs more than the PLAs, but they’re still not using that.

Carolyn Virostek:
But a lot of the 3d plastic filament, I’ve not been able to find one that does not have PLAs in there. Now, they do have different components even, or I should say substance, or where it might be 25% hemp, 40%, 60%. There’s very few companies that do anything to 90, to a 100%. Now there is a company that is in France and even in Canada, where they have really a much higher percentage of hemp in their plastic.

Carolyn Virostek:
Again, we use that term. But in their filaments, they do have a much better process that they’re using and they’re trying to break into the industry and they’re doing well with it, but there’s still very few companies that are doing that.

Matt Baum:
What can you look for? I’m just curious. Is there a question that you can ask? Is there something you can look for, when you see someone that is working with hemp plastic or some way? What do I ask them to make sure… I understand it’s good that they’re using any hemp as a filler, because less plastic better, but if it’s just a filler and there’s still plastic in it, or there’s these PLAs in it and whatnot, what is the question we should be asking to make sure that we’re getting responsibly made hemp plastic, that’s going to break down and it is compostable? Is it just as simple as saying, “Hey, is this compostable?”

Carolyn Virostek:
That’s one of the questions, yeah. “Is it compostable?” And how long does it take? And also, is it a PLA? If it’s a PLA, then we know that it’s going to break down into microplastics and it’s going to take longer for it to break down, and it’s not going to be compostable it’s biodegradable, but not compostable.

Matt Baum:
And they’re going to know, if I say the word, “Hey are their PLAs in this?” They’re going to go, “Oh, this guy knows what he’s talking about.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, they’re going to say, “Yeah, there are PLAs, but it’s compostable.” And that’s okay. Yeah, it is. I would much rather have a 25% hemp than a no hemp, and 25% with PLA than an oil based fossil fuel that they’re using.

Matt Baum:
Definitely.

Carolyn Virostek:
That would be one thing, “Are you using any fossil fuels?” Because some will still even use PLA with some fossil fuels to bind it up, to make a little bit stronger, but then we changed the compostable ability as well as the bio-degradability.

Matt Baum:
That’s exactly the subject that was brought up with the person I was speaking with, who I’m not going to name because they asked me not to, because they’re like, “I don’t want to mess up anyone else’s good thing.” And he’s like, “But a lot of these people that are working in hemp plastic now are literally just incorporating it into old fashion oil-based plastics and using it as a filler.” Which again, better but not the answer, not what we want.

Matt Baum:
The idea is to move to something closer to these hemp straws that like you said, “Reduce in to powder, you’re adding some…” And I’m not sure, I’m not even me to look for the scientific terms, what you add to make a bind, but you heat it up and boom, we have plastic. What is the future of this? Where does this go? Is this something that you… The straws I think are so important, because if you look at single waste plastic, that is the biggest form of plastic waste out there.

The future of hemp straws

Matt Baum:
It’s not children’s toys, or even industrial plastics, it’s single use plastic. So, obviously like you said, these are a little more expensive, but the idea behind it, is it’s more responsible. Are people responding to that? Are people excited about this? Are people willing to spend a little more? And do you think this is something that is going to catch on and start to get major plastic producers to pay attention?

Carolyn Virostek:
Absolutely. There’s an excitement about it, because of the property of hemp, as well as not having the PLAs. And it is more expensive. So it is something that we have to try to get them to understand, that you either pay for it now or pay for it later. You can either pay for the straws as a cheap component and then pay for it later in the processing of having to get it off the beaches and out of the waters, et cetera, or you pay a little bit more now and then that worry is less.

Carolyn Virostek:
We still have to be responsible in how we dispose them and how we compost them. But it’s something that, if it does end up in the ocean or in the waters, it’s going to break down and we don’t have to be so concerned about the toxic residue that it might leave behind.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It’s perfect.

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s very exciting. We have a lot of people excited about it. I will say the environment right now with the pandemic, everything’s shut down. It’s cooled things off, but what it has done also is made people more excited about realizing we need to do something now, this is not something that we need to put off for five years or try to work it into the budget because again, we either pay for them now, or we pay for that cost later. And I think right now people are really excited about having something that they know is going to break down and is not going to linger in our environment for years and years.

Matt Baum:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but sounds it like, I would guess anyway, that the price is only high because there aren’t a lot of people making this stuff yet. And as more people get into the business of making hemp plastic, that price is going to come down. Is it just a matter of producers? Because it seems like every aspect of the hemp business at present, and not just at present, but in the last we’ll say four years, their biggest issue has been finding producers to do the work.

Matt Baum:
Basically, we’ve got farmers, that’ll grow it and that’s great. But what happens next? Whether it’s going to a place that’s going to extract CBD, or take out the fiber or grind the seeds, is this just another case of, “We just need more people doing this?”

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. And knowing how to do it. Absolutely, because even though we are farming a lot more hemp than we were even a year ago. And a lot of companies say we’ve got so much biomass that we don’t even have the buyers for it. What it is, is that they actually don’t have the equipment or the know-how, to process it the way that they want it to, and that machinery is millions and millions of dollars.

Carolyn Virostek:
They’re bringing it out, but we’re in the growing pains, of learning how to use this product and how to use it in the best way that we can environmentally and being able to process it without any waste too. Because, we really can’t use the entire plant. We just need to know how and have the proper equipment. So, we’re in a big learning curve right now, growing pains with that.

Matt Baum:
How far off do you think we are? And just call your shot. No, one’s going to hold you to this. No, one’s going to look at the podcast in five years and be like, “Nice call.” But how far off do you think we are before, I go to Starbucks and I get a hemp straw?

Carolyn Virostek:
I’m hoping a year to two years.

Matt Baum:
Wow. Really?

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. That’s absolutely my hope.

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome.

Carolyn Virostek:
I will say that we had really big clients on the list, until the pandemic shut everything down. Really big companies similar to Starbucks. So it’s on the cusp there. People are wanting and ready. It’s just now we’ve we need the economy to just support it too.

Matt Baum:
So we’ve got the machines, we know how to do it. We’ve got people growing it, now it’s just a matter of showing people. Not only is this the responsible thing to do, it’s the right thing to do. And it’s a cost-effective thing to do, if we put a little know-how into it and that’s basically it, that’s our biggest issue. Just getting them to try it more or less.

Growing hemp for sustainability

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. Yeah. And then it will come down to a point where we do need more farmers for that biomass, because one farm is not going to be able to supply the biomass for Starbucks.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Carolyn Virostek:
That’s our hope, is that we have so much demand for it that we need more farmers to be able to supply that biomass.

Matt Baum:
It also seems like there’s a lot of farmers that went into this, with the CBD gold rush idea where like, “I’m going to grow hemp and sell to CBD weirdos, and they’re going to turn it into all kinds of fake drugs for hippies and I’m going to make money.” And then they went, “Oh, that market’s not quite there.”

Matt Baum:
And in the meantime, the fiber farmers weren’t as plentiful. Because again, it seems like they’re won as many, I want to say, industrial companies that were working in hemp fiber, is that part of the issue too? Just convincing people that like, “Hey, it’s not all CBD. We can grow this for fiber and seed as well?”

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s that as well as the machinery. In order to break the hemp down into the product that you need it for, whether it’s for clothing or for, quote-unquote “plastics.” It’s having the correct machinery to break it down. And that I think is what has slowed a lot of companies down into processing it. The hemp is the passion of mine. I really do think that we should be using it more. I feel I know maybe a half a percent of what we could know about the plant, but I think we’re still learning.

Matt Baum:
That’s the most exciting part though, right?

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
It’s like, how many other plants out there that farmers in the United States, in Iowa, in Nebraska, in Kentucky, in Colorado are growing right now where we’re like, “Oh my God, there’s so much more we could do with this.” What can we learn about this? It’s like, if we found out, like, “Look at that corn, we can build skyscrapers out of it.” Who knew?

Carolyn Virostek:
Who knew we could refill a car out of the corn oil?

Matt Baum:
Right. It’s crazy.

Carolyn:
We can do it, but are we doing it? That’s the same thing with hemp. We can make all these products. Why aren’t we?

Matt Baum:
Exactly.

Carolyn Virostek:
One, it is the infrastructure is not there. Also, we still have regulations that limit what can be done, in some States they’re not allowed to use the biomass or the fibers or anything for animal bedding, even just simple as that, or animal feed.

Matt Baum:
Let alone animal feed. They won’t even let them lay around in it for a fair. Like, is the cow going to get stoned? Come on, it’s ridiculous.

Carolyn Virostek:
Those things just make you question like, “Really, why aren’t we using it more?” Just like flax, that’s a plant too that can be used, and my great, great grandfather brought it over from Ireland in the 1850s to Canada. And I didn’t realize this until a few years ago when I started looking at the hemp and then I realized that he actually wrote a book in Canada about flax and the importance of flax for the fiber, for clothing, for so many different things, for food. He had a big part in bringing flax over to North America, but we’re still not using flax even to the point where we could be. Hemp is the same thing.

Matt Baum:
We put it in smoothies, and that’s about it, because it helps in digestion. Right? You can do so much more with it. It’s crazy.

Carolyn Virostek:
With hemp, even making clothing and building materials, if you’ve seen hemp wood, there’s a company, Hemp Wood.

Matt Baum:
I just interviewed them. I just interviewed them on the show. They were fantastic.

Carolyn Virostek:
I love their wood. With Hempcrete, what I think we should be doing is, especially in California, Colorado, Oregon, with all these forest fires, we need to rebuild with hemp, because if you can put a blow torch on hempcrete, why aren’t we building-

Matt Baum:
Same with hemp wood. Hemp wood barely burns, it’s crazy.

Carolyn Virostek:
And they’re antibacterial, antimicrobial. Why aren’t we using this down in South when they’ve got all these floods and hurricanes, because if it gets wet, all you got to do is bring in a dehumidifier and let it dry out.

Matt Baum:
Right. And you are good to go.

Carolyn Virostek:
Whereas now you got to tear down the whole structure because it turns to mold and mildew within three days.

Matt Baum:
Oh, but there’s a whole cottage industry for that too. So they might not be happy about losing their jobs.

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly. And that’s why the fossil fuel industry pays $125 million a year to lobby, to keep their oils in the plastic industry. It’s just the same thing with everything else. I think we’re going to be moving towards that more and more, building materials, clothing, containers, furniture, I really hope that we can.

Matt Baum:
It’s unavoidable, because oil is going to get more and more expensive and more and more bizarre. And the ways we have to find it, we’re filtering it out of sand and stuff now, it’s going to get more and more expensive, and hemp like you said, they can grow it in a month.

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. And it doesn’t have toxic byproducts. If you fracking all that toxic byproducts that comes from the waters and it contaminates that, where is how it actually can heal the land. And creates more carbon dioxide for us. And it really can help in healing the planet. So yeah. Why aren’t we using more of it? And it’s all political, but we’re getting there.

Matt Baum:
Of course. It’s going to happen. I feel good about it. You feel good about it, we feel good about it. Right?

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, the other thing is that if you look at Europe, they’re way ahead of the game, they’ve been making clothes for decades. Now, they’re even making their cars out of hemp, the internal components, the dashboards and things are made out of hemp because it’s stronger, it’s lighter weight. So it makes the gas mileage even better.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. I interviewed a company that works with Maserati, Mercedes. It’s not like they’re making junk here. They’re making hemp plastic for very expensive high-end cars. And I asked him, “Why don’t we do this in the US?” And he goes, “Well, we don’t really want to mess with all your BS right now, as soon as you guys figure it out, we’ll be there.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. It’s got to make you question. Why is it that Europe is already making them, but we don’t have the American car manufacturer?

Matt Baum:
It’s shamefully stupid, is what it is.

Carolyn Virostek:
We also know that cars don’t have to rely on fossil fuels. Right? We can be using corn oil, hemp oil to run our cars.

Matt Baum:
Or electricity.

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. They want to tax people if they use solar energy. And it’s government regulations that are backed by these big corporations that are feeling threatened. And that’s why we lost cannabis to begin with in the 1930s, was because of political and corporate concern about getting into their space. And we’re just dealing with that in 2020.

Matt Baum:
That’s why they’re hesitating to bring it back too. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. This has been fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for the straws. They’re great.

Carolyn Virostek:
Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate you having me on, and making me feel at ease.

Matt Baum:
Totally. I took a box of the straws up to my local coffee shop and I was like, “Check it out. These are hemp straws.” And they were like, “Oh my God, these are amazing.” It’s like super or liberal, where you go to see dudes having Marxist conversations and stuff in Omaha, in our little blue pocket of Nebraska here in Omaha, but they loved them. So I’ll put them in touch. I’ll definitely put them in touch so they can order some.

Carolyn Virostek:
Great. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.

Hemp straws contest winners & Exhemplary Life coupon

Matt Baum:
Carolyn was wonderful to talk to, and she’s the type of person that is very passionate about hemp. And I love speaking to people like that. Funny story, when she initially started and I told her I wasn’t going to mention this on the show, but I thought it was funny enough that you guys should know.

Matt Baum:
When we first started talking, she was really worried that we may not be able to use the interview, because she doesn’t normally talk about this stuff. And she’s not from a science background, but as you can see, she is very well-versed in hemp plastics and bio-plastics, and it was so nice to talk to her. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Carolyn, I will have links to exhemplarylife.com in the show notes. And, like I promised you, if you use the coupon code 25 off that’s 25OFF, you will get 25% off your first purchase at exhemplarylife.com. That’s 25OFF, 25 off use that code.

Matt Baum:
Let them know that you heard about their site here on the Ministry of Hemp podcast and let them know that you appreciate what they are doing on their site. And as always, because we believe that the world is a better place for all when it’s more accessible, we have a full written transcript of this show in the show notes as well.

Matt Baum:
And now it’s contest time as promised. I get to announce the three winners of our exemplary life and Ministry of Hemp, Instagram giveaway, congratulations to @ritualsofthekitchen, @xtra_salt_xtra_lime, and @Kateanne27. You are all big winners of hemp straws and Ministry of Hemp stickers. So go tell every money you win big, when you listen to the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Oh, follow us on Instagram too, more about that in just a moment.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
And that brings us to the end of another exciting episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. If you dig what we do here on this show, and you think that hemp can change the world, the best way you can support us is to go to Patreon.com/ministryofhemp and become a Ministry of Hemp insider. It is an awesome way to help us spread the word. And you could access to podcast extras, early articles, all kinds of other stuff, not to mention you can feel better knowing you’re helping us spread the good word of hemp education.

Matt Baum:
And if you need more hemp education in your life, get over to ministryofhemp.com. Check out all our awesome articles there. Follow us on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, we are either at Ministry of Hemp or /Ministry of Hemp, maybe you got hemp questions. Maybe you’ve got some subjects you’d like to hear me talk about on the show.

Matt Baum:
Call me, leave me a message. And tell me about it. 402-819-6417. Leave me a message on our Ministry of Hemp voice line. And I might answer your question on the show with little help and Drew and Kate and maybe even Deseret who you’re going to hear from soon. She’s great. She’s our videographer. We love her. Again, that number is 402-819-6417. Call us, ask your questions and you might hear us answer them right here on the show.

Matt Baum:
Now, I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Remember to wash your hands. I hope you’re not traveling. And if you are out there and be extra careful, please wear a mask the time for me to get out of here. And I like to sign off the same way every time by saying, “Remember to take care of yourself, remember to take care of others and make good decisions, will you?” This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp.
Signing off.

The post Hemp Straws And The Sustainability Of Hemp With Exhemplary Life appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

Exhemplary Life Hemp Straws are a non-toxic alternative to plastic drinking straws that begin to biodegrade after 120 days. But unlike paper straws and some other natural alternatives, they won’t break down in your cold drinks!

These straws are amazing — they feel and work just like plastic straws but they are plastic free. Exhemplary Life Hemp Straws are even free from PLAs, a common ingredient in most hemp-based plastic products that is very slow to break down. As a result, they biodegrade much faster than hemp plastic.

To enter the Exhemplary Life Hemp Straws giveaway: Follow @Exhemplarylife and @Ministryofhemp on Instagram. In a reply to our contest post on Ministry of Hemp’s Instagram, tag a friend and tell us something you’d like to see made out of hemp. At the end of the giveaway, we’ll pick three winners who will receive a box of hemp straws and a couple of Ministry of Hemp stickers.

Check our podcast and Instagram next week for a list of winners, and a special Exhemplary Life coupon.

Exhemplary Life Hemp Straws Giveaway: Complete contest rules

• This contest runs from November 20, 2020 until November 23, 2020 at 5:00pm Central.
• This contest is sponsored by Ministry of Hemp and Exhemplary Life. It is not sponsored, endorsed, administrated by or associated with Instagram in any way.
• This contest is only open to residents of the United States.
• To enter, like our contest post on Instagram and, in a comment on the post, @tag at least one friend’s Instagram account and tell us something you’d like to see made out of hemp. Be sure to also follow @Exhemplarylife and @Ministryofhemp.
• Contest entries are limited to one entry per person. Additional entries will be ignored.
• After the contest ends, Ministry of Hemp will select 3 winners and contact them via Instagram direct messaging. We reserve the right to pick a new winner if we can’t reach you in a reasonable amount of time.
• Each winner will receive one (1) box of Exhemplary Life Hemp Straws and two (2) Ministry of Hemp stickers. Exhemplary Life and Ministry of Hemp will cover all shipping costs.
• At the end of the contest, we’ll announce the winners on our Instagram and our Podcast. We’ll also publish a special coupon for Exhemplary Life products.

The post Enter Our Exhemplary Life Hemp Straws Giveaway On Instagram appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

Although we’ve discussed hemp plastic before, today on our podcast we’re looking at a new form: 3D printing with hemp.

On the Ministry of Hemp podcast, our host Matt talks with Andrew Bader, founder of Corfiber and HempVision. Matt first met Andrew at a local Farmer’s Market in Omaha, Nebraska where he was 3d printing chess pieces for a chess set made of hemp plastic.

Matt spoke to Andrew from his basement where he started his company and 3d prints sunglasses, jewelry, and several other hemp plastic items. They discuss the difficulties of starting a hemp plastic business in a market with no shortage of product but a serious lack of hemp plastic processing. Andrew comes from a corn and soybean farming family and also has some unique insight into why more farmers aren’t switching to hemp crops yet.

In the closing moments, Matt teases his upcoming episode about the cannabinoid Delta 8, which we’ve just created an FAQ about. Matt also mentions his previous interview with Kelly Rippel about Kansas hemp.

Brought to you by Blue Forest Farms Hemp

We’d like to thank our partners at Blue Forest Farms for making this episode possible.

The folks at BFF pride themselves on a fully seed-to-shelf process that is also fully organic. From selectively breeding their own high-quality varietals of hemp; growing plants locally on their sun-kissed, organic, Colorado farm; monitoring the state-of-the-art extraction process; and even engineering the best tasting formulas, Blue Forest Farms ensures quality at every step in the CBD product creation process.

The Blue Forest Farms What’s Your Number system comes from processing 6 different unique oils. Whether you’re looking for a full spectrum unrefined hemp oil, pure CBD isolate with absolutely no THC, or even an advanced sleep formula that combines CBD with a concentrated amount of CBN, BFF has six oil formulas to fit the unique needs of their customers. We also picked Blue Forest Farms Broad Spectrum Gummies as one of our top brands of CBD gummies.

Use the code “Ministry” at checkout for 20% off your purchase at bffhemp.com and help support a great CBD brand that supports the Ministry of Hemp.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

Subscribe to our show!

Be sure to subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podbay, Stitcher, Pocketcasts, Google Play or your favorite podcast app. If you like what your hear leave us a review or star rating. It’s a quick and easy way to help get this show to others looking for Hemp information and please, share this episode on your own social media!

Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider and help spread the good word!

If you believe hemp can change the world then help us spread the word! Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider when you donate any amount on our Patreon page!

You’ll be the first to hear about everything going on with our special newsletter plus exclusive Patron content including blogs, podcast extras, and more. Visit the Ministry of Hemp on Patreon and become an Insider now!

3D Printing Hemp Plastic: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 59 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “3D Printing with Hemp Plastic”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education. You may have noticed I’ve been trying to talk about hemp plastic more on the show lately because it’s important. Hemp plastics are a renewable and responsible way to replace oil-based plastics. We’re going to talk about it again on the show today. But before that, I want to say thanks to our partner for this episode. Blue Forest Farms is partnering with us to bring you this episode and this information, and they are a fantastic company.

Matt Baum:
We’re super excited to partner with them. And later on in the show, I’m going to tell you more about them, their line of high quality CBD products and give you a discount code you can use at bffhemp.com. So listen for that, and huge thanks to Blue Forest Farms for partnering with us. Today on the show, I’m talking to Andrew Bader. Andrew is actually a local Omaha guy like me. I bumped into him at a farmer’s market where he had a tent set up and they were 3D printing hemp gifts using hemp plastic. I was blown away. I didn’t even know anybody in town was doing this, and I told him he has to come on my show and talk to me. Andrew is very much in the startup phase with his company, Corfiber. He’s currently operating out of his basement and that’s where our conversation starts.

Meet Andrew Bader

Andrew Bader:
I currently work in my basement. My operation is out of the basement. I look forward to expanding someday.

Matt Baum:
And so, this is truly a basement operation, when you’re just getting off the ground?

Andrew Bader:
All the great companies start out of the basement.

Matt Baum:
It’s true, man. It’s absolutely true. I got to say, I was a little shocked. I was walking through my local farmer’s market a couple of weeks ago, and there were some guys there making sunglasses right in front of us on a 3D printer right here in Omaha, Nebraska. Everybody I’ve talked to has been… All over the world all over the coast, in Europe, I’ve talked to a couple of people in India actually, you’re the first person that I’ve talked to in Omaha, Nebraska, where I live by the way that’s actually doing stuff with hemp. How did you get started on this?

Andrew Bader:
Well, I wanted to work with hemp plastics since I graduated high school. I figured the amount of startup capital to buy the extruder which compounds the hemp into your plastic cost quite a bit of money.

Matt Baum:
I would guess.

Andrew Bader:
So I just started doing the research and figured out how much the resins will cost and the hemp fiber will cost, and all the ins and outs of how to get hemp plastic production going here. It’s Nebraska, so we got a lot of farm ground to the crop.

Matt Baum:
It’s true. Are you getting your hemp from Nebraska?

Andrew Bader:
No, it’s South Dakota.

Matt Baum:
Okay, okay.

Making hemp filament for 3D printing

Andrew Bader:
There’s a company out there called 3D-Fuel. They work with a university in a partnership to produce the hemp filament. They compound the hemp into a PLA, which comes from cornstarch.

Matt Baum:
Okay, and what’s a PLA?

Andrew Bader:
It stands for polylactic acid. It’s a clear resin.

Matt Baum:
All right, got you.

Andrew Bader:
It is from microorganisms that break down plant starch.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Andrew Bader:
And since corn is so abundant, one of the cheapest ways to make PLA is to break down that starch.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Andrew Bader:
And then, the company compounds it or mixes it with heat and pressure to really create a uniform substance to then make a filament out of that you can feed your 3D printer.

Matt Baum:
Okay. So you’re literally buying… I don’t know why, but I picture like hamster food pellets, almost, compressed little pieces of filament. It’s a hemp plastic. It acts just like a regular 3D printer would with plastic?

Andrew Bader:
Well, there’s many different grades of PLA. So there’s 3D printer grade and there’s injection moldable grade, then there’s a few other grades. The PLA that’s made for 3D printing, they put it through another machine that produces the filament. So you take the pellets that looks like the hamster material.

Matt Baum:
Right, it comes in a bag, right?

Andrew Bader:
Yes.

Matt Baum:
Okay. So I’m not that far off, it’s just a bunch of pellets?

Andrew Bader:
Right.

Matt Baum:
And those are fed into the 3D printer and then the 3D printer awaits your instructions and basically melts them down or does it strip them or?

Andrew Bader:
Well, first those pallets, those plastic pallets are turned into the filament. And so, it’s turned into a roll. But we also make injection moldable sunglasses. That’s when you just take those pallets and you use heat and pressure and force it into a mold.

Matt Baum:
Right, right.

Andrew Bader:
So the idea here is to create everyday items out of hemp plastic, and convert oil-based plastic to plant-based plastic.

Creating a hemp 3D printing startup

Matt Baum:
Shortly after you graduated from high school, you got interested in this? How did that happen? How did you happen across hemp and the idea of hemp plastic? We’ll get to the whole making sunglasses and why you’re doing that later. But how did you get started with this idea?

Andrew Bader:
I grew up on a farm growing corn and soybeans.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Andrew Bader:
We’re price takers. We’ve always been dependent on the market. The market tells us what they’re going to give for our product. So I was also looking for a more sustainable crop to produce, and hemp is the sustainable crop of choice for large scale production across the United States, because it requires no pesticides. It requires a fraction of the water. [crosstalk 00:06:08] requires to grow. So when you talk about sustainability, hemp is what you want.

Matt Baum:
Totally. So your family were… You grew up on a family farm, I take it?

Andrew Bader:
Yes.

Matt Baum:
What do they think about hemp then? You said they were corn and soybean people. What do they think about this? Has it been tough to try and sell them on this idea or are they on your side? Are they pro-hemp and trying to grow it here in Nebraska too?

Andrew Bader:
I’m sure they have their reservations and the words that they keep in the back of their mind that they would like to tell me, but they are open. They want to see what it can do. They want to… If it can be profitable and not be a drug or ruin people’s lives. See everything that’s good I think should be brought into the open, and eventually people will see that hemp is some of the longest, strongest and most durable of all natural fibers. It requires no pesticides or herbicides to grow. The seed is a complete protein, that means it has all the essential amino acids to build muscle .

Matt Baum:
You’ve done your homework, you know what you’re talking about here. You’re not just going into the plastic business. You did your homework, I can tell by the way you talk.

Andrew Bader:
I’ve approached this from all angles. I’ve attended many different expos. Some of the first being the NoCo Hemp Expo in Colorado.

Matt Baum:
Which one were you at? Because I was at one about… Well, not last year, but the year before. I was at that one.

Andrew Bader:
I was at the first and second and third one.

Matt Baum:
Cool. All right. So we were together at the third one then I think?

Andrew Bader:
Maybe. I heard it brings in 10,000 people. So-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, it was massive, it was huge.

Andrew Bader:
… you can get lost.

Matt Baum:
Definitely.

Andrew Bader:
Hopefully they have it this year. Well, they had to cancel this year’s. But next year hopefully, they’ll have it.

Matt Baum:
Hopefully, it will be back. Yeah, it is a good time. So when you went there, is that where you started to formulate this idea for a 3D printing business that could just start putting together every day items?

Andrew Bader:
No, I was always looking for that opportunity to get in the market without spending a large amount of time and money to get involved. And eventually, 3D field started producing this hemp filament maybe in 2018. Or 2017 I think they put out their first rolls. In 2018, I really got started just making the sunglasses, perfecting the process. I wanted to do CBD. I wanted to actually make the hemp plastic. But in the end, my role just came down to this.

The challenges of a small hemp business

Matt Baum:
Fair enough. So you said, you wanted to start up a business like this and you had to look at overhead. What’s it like? I know getting in the CBD business or getting into a massive industrial hemp plastic business, very expensive. What was it like for you like someone who decided, I’m going to specialize and do a certain thing? Would it be cheaper to do it this way than say to just buy plastic filament for your 3D printer and print stuff or is it more of an ecological choice as well?

Andrew Bader:
If I had the funding, I would make my own plastic because I could make it for a lot cheaper. Because if I could make it myself instead of costing a couple dollars to make an item, it would cost me a couple cents.

Matt Baum:
Of course, yeah.

Andrew Bader:
But it all comes down to how much time and money you got. Unfortunately, I hate that money runs the world. But when it comes down to it, you need funding.

Matt Baum:
Of course. So what’s your other background like, because you can’t just… This is not a thing where you sit in front of your computer and go, “Computer, make sunglasses.” And then in the printer just ba-boom! You’ve got to have some AutoCAD background or some type of architecture or design?

Andrew Bader:
So every great company, every good idea, it takes a team. You can’t do everything by yourself.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Andrew Bader:
And I work with a couple of CAD designers, my brother being one of them. Another guy in Omaha, [Roderick 00:10:20] [Ekwall 00:10:20] helped design the first model for the sunglasses. And since then, I’ve worked with a few other CAD designers. But besides just the CAD designing, just getting the printer to do exactly what you want in a nice way, and then taking it off the printer and sanding it down and getting your materials for the right price. It all takes logistics.

Matt Baum:
Of course.

Andrew Bader:
And figuring out the logistics is a big part of everything.

Matt Baum:
So you said you’re getting your hemp from South Dakota. How’d you hook up with those guys? Was it just a matter of, I want to deal with someone local, or you just got on Google and found somebody who was doing it?

Andrew Bader:
I just found 3D-Fuel, and they were making this hemp… They were selling this hemp filament. It was just fate, I guess.

Matt Baum:
I’m going to take a note on that. I’d like to get ahold of those guys, because I know South Dakota is pretty stiff with their hemp rules. So I was a little shocked when you said this was coming out of South Dakota. Their governor is-

Andrew Bader:
Let me read the box. It could be North Dakota. Entwined 3D printing filament is produced from USA-grown and process industrial hemp. The hemp filament uses no dyes allowing it to maintain a true natural brown tone with small specks of visible bio-fill.

Matt Baum:
Fair enough.

Andrew Bader:
Yes.

Matt Baum:
And you said, what’s the name of the company? I’m sorry, 3D-Fuels?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah, 3D-Fuel.

Matt Baum:
I’m going to have to look them up.

Andrew Bader:
There is also a European company called Kanesis, and that you spell that, K-A-N-E-S-I-S.

Matt Baum:
S-I-S.

Andrew Bader:
I’ve tried their filament. It’s unique in its own way. It probably has a little more bio-fill in it, but it just doesn’t perform like 3D-Fuel’s does. There’s actually another company coming online out of California that’s going to be producing this. So there’s currently three companies that can make this hemp filament-

Matt Baum:
In the world, there’s three companies?

Andrew Bader:
In the world, in the world.

Matt Baum:
That’s crazy. It just seems like if this is going to… If this can do what we think it can do and you’re making sunglasses out of it… I have a pair, they’re fantastic, and they’re lighter, but they seem stronger than most plastic sunglasses I’ve had, I got to say. If we can do this, does that mean hemp plastic is kind of limitless in what it can do to replace other plastics in your opinion?

Andrew Bader:
Well, you probably wouldn’t want to build a spaceship out of it.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. We’re not building spaceships out of plastic. I guess as far as replacing normal plastic as we think about them.

Andrew Bader:
If you can process hemp in the right way, you can make plastics though that are very competitive for aerospace engineering products.

Matt Baum:
That’s-

Andrew Bader:
But this filament and this plastic I use, the hemp is just a filler. So it reduces the amount of resin needed. It brings down the cost of the plastic. It brings down the weight of the plastic. If you can process the fiber down to pure level and incorporate it into your plastic, it can add strength to it, so tensile, flexural, impact strength. Henry Ford as we all know used… Built his first Model T out of a natural fiber plastics being a mix of hemp, kenaf and maybe flax, maybe sisal. He took a sledgehammer to that thing and in the video, it just bounces off.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, no dent or anything. It was really cool. So what do you-

Andrew Bader:
So with the right technology, hemp plastic could be limitless.

3D printing hemp with Corfiber

Matt Baum:
So what are you guys making right now? What are you producing for a hemp vision? Is it just sunglasses or you’re getting into other stuff too?

Andrew Bader:
We make about four or five different models of sunglasses, then we make earrings in all the element forms. So fire, wind, tree, [crosstalk 00:14:38] mountains.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Andrew Bader:
But we also make vases, business card holders, salt dishes, coasters, coaster holders, bottle openers, [crosstalk 00:14:49]-

Matt Baum:
It’s great, like looking around office to see everything. I love it.

Andrew Bader:
… key chains and we just started making chess pieces and chess boards.

Matt Baum:
I did see that. That was out there at the farmer’s market as well. Very cool.

Andrew Bader:
It’s been one of the hot items. People really are picking up on that chess set.

Matt Baum:
So how many printers do you have right now?

Andrew Bader:
Eight.

Matt Baum:
You have eight of them. And you can literally take any 3D printer and put this filament in? It doesn’t have to be a special printer?

Andrew Bader:
No. Yeah, this is pretty… I use pretty basic printers. But not any printer because there’s some printers that use liquid resin.

Matt Baum:
Oh, okay.

Andrew Bader:
And some companies make their 3D printers so you can only put in a certain kind of filament that they produce. They make the opening smaller and make it difficult to use other kinds of filament.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Andrew Bader:
I challenge anybody to buy a 3D printer and start making items out of hemp plastic.

Special thanks to Blue Forest Farms

Matt Baum:
That’s really cool. Let’s take a quick break so we can talk about our partner this week, Blue Forest Farms. Blue Forest Farms prides itself on a full seed to shelf process that is completely organic, from selectively breeding their own high quality varietals, growing their plants locally in their Sunkist organic Colorado farms, monitoring the state of the art extraction process and even engineering the best tasting formulas. Blue Forest Farms or BFF as we call them in-house at Ministry of Hemp ensures quality at every step in the CBD product creation process. They even have a very cool numbering system that helps you figure out what’s your number based on their six different CBD oils.

Matt Baum:
Maybe you’re looking for a full spectrum unrefined hemp oil, or you’re looking for pure CBD isolate with absolutely no THC, or maybe you would be interested in their new sleep formula. It’s a CVN Advanced Formula Number Six, their latest organic CBD oil. They sent me some and I’ve been using it. I’ve got to say I’ve been sleeping very well, which is great, because I just ran out of my other one. Blue Forest Farms has a CBD oil that is perfect for any of your needs. You can find more information about their farm, the genetics, and how their extraction process works over at blueforestfarms.com. And then head over to bffhemp.com and check out and buy their products.

Matt Baum:
By the way, if you use the code ministry at checkout right now, you’ll get 20% off your first purchase just for listening to this show. Head to bffhemp.com, and of course we’ll have links to that in the show notes for this episode and use the code ministry to get 20% off your first purchase. You guys are always contacting me and asking, “Matt, where can I get good CBD? Who is a good CBD company?” Blue Forest Farms is fantastic. We are proud to be partnering with them and I am so excited to recommend them to you guys. Again, had to bffhemp.com. Check out their whole line of CBD oils, including their latest, Number Six which combines the benefit of CBD with a concentrated amount of CBN that’s going to help you get to sleep. Don’t forget to use the code ministry at checkout to get 20% off. Let them know you listen to Ministry of Hemp.com to get your information and you want to support businesses that support us. And now back to my interview with Andrew Bader. So how long did it take to make the sunglasses that I bought?

3D printing hemp sunglasses

Andrew Bader:
The prototyping took about a year. I’m a farmer by trade. So I’ve made these on the side and I continue to do that when I get home. After a long day’s work, I turn on all the printers, get them all going and start sanding and assembling the sunglasses.

Matt Bader:
So how long does it take to actually print one pair of sunglasses, start to finish? You turn on the printer and you go, “Computer, sunglasses,” or whatever you do? How long does it take to actually print it out?

Andrew Bader:
One pair takes about 60 minutes.

Matt Baum:
Oh, really?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah.

Matt Baum:
Is that based on… Is that the kind of thing where the technology is going to get better and it’ll be faster or is it because of the nature of the shape or the plastic itself?

Andrew Bader:
Well, that is not the limiting factor. If I get all my eight printers going printing sunglasses four at a time, I’ll wake up with almost 30 pairs of sunglasses. And then every two hours, you get four sunglasses off of one printer. So-

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure.

Andrew Bader:
… then the limiting factor becomes labor.

Matt Baum:
Sanding it down, putting the lenses in and stuff like that?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah. So with 3D printing, I can multiply my printers and get all I need from there.

Matt Baum:
Sure. But it will probably be a faster process in the future as 3D printers get better. Right?

Andrew Bader:
I hope so. When you speed up… I can make these sprinters go real fast and put in only 10% infill. I could probably make them 10 times faster, but the quality goes down. There’s a balance between quality and speed and-

How 3D printing works

Matt Baum:
You said the word infill. Tell me what that means. Literally, I’ve seen 3D printers work. They blow my mind. It melts my brain when I see them in action. But I realize I have no idea how they actually work.

Andrew Bader:
So when you start printing an item, you got your first layers. Those are all 100%. Every inch is covered. And then after those first four or five layers, then the printer starts just making a square-shaped instead of complete infill.

Matt Baum:
Okay. So it’s like almost weaving it around a skeleton?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah, it’s like a honeycomb.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Andrew Bader:
So on the outside of a bee’s nest, it’s all solid. But when you crack it open, it’s a honeycomb.

Matt Baum:
Awesome. So once you have your plans and you’ve set up your 3D dimensional design, you literally feed that into the computer, set it, forget it and just let it start printing? You go to bed and wake up in the morning and you’ve got a bunch of sunglasses there?

Andrew Bader:
Heck yeah. And then, I turned them on and go to work, and I come back from work and there’s a whole bunch more.

Matt Baum:
That is awesome. So they print out… I’m picturing… What I’m picturing is ridiculous. It’s like a cartoon assembly line or something with a bunch of hammers and whatever. But the printer prints it out and then it just spits it on to a little conveyor belt or something?

Andrew Bader:
That would be the dream [crosstalk 00:21:53] if the 3D printer could dump what it printed off, scrape it off and restart itself, that would be awesome. But no, after it’s done printing, you got to scrape each print off.

Matt Baum:
Okay, okay.

Andrew Bader:
And restart it.

Matt Baum:
So what’s next for you? Right now, you’re new, you’re working out of the basement. You’re getting the word out there. You’re going to farmer’s markets. I feel like the response has been really cool.

Andrew Bader:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. I would like to bring the price down so injection molding is going to happen. I like how I can test the market with 3D printing and see which items and designs people like before I go buy that $10,000 mold.

Matt Baum:
Sure, Jesus. I get that.

Andrew Bader:
[crosstalk 00:22:37].

Matt Baum:
I totally get that. So that’s the plan right now is 3D print some stuff for proof of concept more or less?

Andrew Bader:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Matt Baum:
I paid $20 for my sunglasses. That’s not a lot to pay for sunglasses. I don’t mind paying that at all.

Andrew Bader:
No, but some tourist shops, so I guess they buy their sunglasses for 12 cents. So-

Matt Baum:
Yeah. There-

Andrew Bader:
… it’s hard to compete with the oil-based sunglasses.

Matt Baum:
Do you think that’s going to be the biggest hurdle is trying to explain to people, yes, they’re more expensive, but the idea is we’re making something that’s better for the environment, that replaces plastic? What’s that conversation like right now? Have you had trouble with those hurdles?

Andrew Bader:
Everybody’s on board with making plant-based plastics.

Matt Baum:
Right? That’s awesome.

Andrew Bader:
So I think it’s all about exposure.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Andrew Bader:
And hopefully, we can get our economy turned around and-

Matt Baum:
That would be nice.

Andrew Bader:
And then, it’ll all come together in time.

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure. So when you start to move to injection molding, now we’re talking like, you can’t do that in your basement. That’s going to be like, you need a warehouse or something. Right? I don’t know how that works either to be quite honest.

Andrew Bader:
No. Actually, if you want to get it down to a couple dollars a pair, you want automated injection molding machines. But you can buy injection molding machines that you can use your hand with. It’s just like a big press.

Matt Baum:
Okay. I’ve seen guys do that with action figures on online and stuff, real nerds that want to make their own action figures, have an injection mold press. Is the plastic just the same thing? It’ll work with hemp plastic the same way?

Andrew Bader:
It’s a different grade.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Andrew Bader:
It’s a different process. It’s a total different designing, different CAD software, different molds.

Matt Baum:
Of course.

Andrew Bader:
No molds in 3D printing.

Matt Baum:
But you’re building the mold as opposed to building out… It’s like you’re almost building it inside out. Whereas your 3D printing, you’re making a skeleton and telling the printer, build this. The mold is actually going to be like what the skeleton will be, the inside of it, more or less? And you pour the goop in and it dries or cools or whatever, and the you have sunglasses.

Andrew Bader:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
So do you know where you’re going to be getting the… You’re not going to get that plastic from the same place, I would guess? It’s two different companies?

Andrew Bader:
Two different companies and we’re hopefully bringing on another company.

Taking the risk of investing in hemp

Matt Baum:
Cool. And are there more people doing injection grade stuff than the 3D printer stuff right now? I would guess there would be.

Andrew Bader:
There’s only a few companies doing it.

Matt Baum:
Really?

Andrew Bader:
Like the 8000Kicks guy, finding a supply of hemp fiber, it seems to be the limiting factor here.

Matt Baum:
Totally.

Andrew Bader:
And a lot of the established companies don’t want to take the risk.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Andrew Bader:
And plus they’re already having good income streams doing what they do.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Andrew Bader:
So it’s going to take new companies with new investment to bring the hemp plastic into the world.

Matt Baum:
Well, it seems like just new companies with new investment but new companies with an ecological mind where they’re saying like, look, like you said, this is going to be a little more expensive. There’s no way around it, but we’re doing something different with real benefit.

Andrew Bader:
I think we can get it down to oil-based prices, but-

Matt Baum:
Really?

Andrew Bader:
Oh yeah, absolutely. The hemp fiber, you can make for dirt cheap. Like in Canada, where the grow hemp through seed, they burn for fiber. They just pile on that fiber up in the corner of the field and burning it.

Matt Baum:
Really?

Andrew Bader:
And the Colorado Hemp Company, they [inaudible 00:26:36] use waste material to make their plastic. It’s nothing special.

Matt Baum:
So this is just a matter of, we don’t have people processing it? That’s the biggest problem?

Andrew Bader:
Yes, it’s all going to take that money into the processing.

Matt Baum:
Good Lord. And once that happens, then sky’s the limit. Then you can make 12 cent sunglasses basically?

Andrew Bader:
Games on.

Matt Baum:
Wow. So you’re trying to get in on this now at the very ground floor as it’s developing so when that does get in place, you’re already there, you’re ready to go?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah, I think we’re developing a good amount of market knowledge to know what bites and what doesn’t.

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure.

Andrew Bader:
So I’ll we’ll know where that hemp plastic has demand and where it might not.

The future of Corfiber

Matt Baum:
So what’s next for you guys, what’s your plan?

Andrew Bader:
Can make everything, every day items out of hemp plastic, so cups, anything.

Matt Baum:
You want to go for it, full on industrial, just let’s replace plastic with hemp, whatever we can make?

Andrew Bader:
Absolutely. And it’s going to take… There’s a niche for everybody. There’s a spot in the market for everybody.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Andrew Bader:
There’s people making hemp toothbrushes.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. I’ve seen those.

Andrew Bader:
… and shoes and sunglasses. So it’s common.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, whether we like it or not, it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of waiting for the processing to catch up to the demand. Right?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah. We might like it, but DuPont might not like it.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. Well, they’ve had their time in the sun, right?

Andrew Bader:
Yeah, it’s time for them to get gone.

Matt Baum:
Most definitely. Yeah, I appreciate you coming on the show, man. And we will have a link obviously in the show notes so people can check out your sunglasses. Right now, are farmer’s markets and stuff, is that the only place you can really get them outside of the website or are they anywhere else?

Andrew Bader:
They’re on Etsy and a few CBD shops on Lincoln and Omaha.

Matt Baum:
Cool, that’s very cool.

Andrew Bader:
We’re trying to get into the NoCo Hemp Expo if they have it next year.

Matt Baum:
Fair enough, make some inroads into some other buyers and stores and stuff?

Andrew Bader:
Absolutely. But we’re trying to be in to every CBD shop across the country.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool. That’s a good idea too, because anyone that’s going to a CBD shop already knows hemp, digs hemp, or is at least curious about it. And when they see it can do stuff like that, I think it really blows people’s minds when… Especially since I was wearing the sunglasses the other day, I was at the dog park. A guy I know that brings his dog up there was like, “What are those?” Because they look different. They don’t look like plastic. They look like brown, flecked. They’re really cool looking. And I told him,-

Andrew Bader:
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:29:17] plastic.

Matt Baum:
… “These are made of hemp.” Yeah.

Andrew Bader:
It’s almost like blood.

Matt Baum:
Totally. And he said, “Are those made of wood?” And I said, “No, they’re made of hemp plastic.” And he said, “What does that mean?” And I blew his mind. I said, “Yeah, there’s a guy right here in town making these and he does it with a 3D printer. It’s literally the plant turned into plastic.” I think the more people learn about this, the more excited they’re going to get

Andrew Bader:
Yes. And we’re now starting to produce those injection molded sunglasses.

Matt Baum:
That’s very cool. Let me ask you, is the final product different than the 3D printed one? Does it look like the same color I assume? But what’s the grade plastic like?

Andrew Bader:
No, injection molded ones are darker.

Matt Baum:
Oh really?

Andrew Bader:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Matt Baum:
Okay. You could-

Andrew Bader:
They look and feel different.

Matt Baum:
Do they feel just like regular plastic?

Andrew Bader:
No, it’s a mixture of a wood feeling mixed with a plastic feeling. It’s a unique one of a kind. You can’t really describe it.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I’ve noticed that. Like I said, it feels lighter in your hand, but it also feels stronger. I’ve had cheap… We’ve all had cheap, crappy, plastic sunglasses that they’re heavy on your face and whatever, and then they just break for some reason on your body.

Reducing waste with hemp plastic

Andrew Bader:
Yeah, which is unfortunate. So I heard all your stats on how much… 300 million shoes go into the landfill. I wonder how many sunglasses go into the landfill.

Matt Baum:
It’s got to be insane. Because for years, think about it. I never spent money on sunglasses because they broke all the time. And so I never understood people who were like, I want a $200 pair of sunglasses. Mine are going to get thrown in the car. They’re going to get scratched. And when I lose them, I’m going to feel like I’m dying inside because I spent $200. You know?

Andrew Bader:
Right, we always need a subscription base-

Matt Baum:
Totally.

Andrew Bader:
… if you lose or break your sunglasses. You send them into us and we’ll ship out another pair for [crosstalk 00:31:14].

Matt Baum:
Totally, that’s a great idea. Yeah, because I know whenever I bought… I would buy cheap 5, 6, $7 sunglasses. They break and I just throw them away and not even think about it. And then they’d be in a landfill for 1,000 years. It’s insane.

Andrew Bader:
And we can grind those sunglasses, those broken sunglasses up and reuse them.

Matt Baum:
Really?

Andrew Bader:
Reuse the plastic.

Matt Baum:
Combine it with hemp plastic?

Andrew Bader:
Well, it’s already hemp plastic. We just put it through a grinder.

Matt Baum:
You’re talking about… I’m sorry, your sunglasses? If I were to send you broken ones, you can literally grind them up and use it again?

Andrew Bader:
The injection molded ones, yes.

Matt Baum:
That’s really cool, just melt it down and make it something again.

Andrew Bader:
Right. And my brother’s actually using recycled plastic too to make sunglasses.

Matt Baum:
That’s very cool.

Andrew Bader:
So we’re using hemp plastic and recycled plastic to make the world a better place.

Matt Baum:
That is awesome. Like I said, I appreciate you coming on the show. This is great. I’m glad someone’s doing this locally. I’m sorry, there’s not more producers out there to help you. What can we do in that? Is there anything we can do at this point to get producers and to get industry just looking at this? Is it a matter of just continuing to buy these products and show them that there’s money there?

Andrew Bader:
I think there’s opportunity for a public private investment. Like the ethanol companies, the government worked with private companies to build all those ethanol plants to create cleaner burning fuel.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Andrew Bader:
That has helped clean up our air pollution tenfold.

Matt Baum:
Definitely.

Andrew Bader:
And I think if the government would take a serious look at hemp and with other private companies… I wish producers and government agencies would approach hemp like they do corn and soybeans, because the potential is there to be as big as corn and soybeans. And-

Matt Baum:
Totally.

Andrew Bader:
… if we can take a more collective effort at this, it’d be more successful. Right now, you’ve got a whole bunch of entrepreneurs using every last dime and penny in their pocket to get their company up and going, but then they have… They hit roadblocks and it goes nowhere.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I hear you. So speaking as a farmer from that aspect, you grew up with corn. You grew up with soybeans. Do you see farmers clamoring for this or saying, yeah, we are [inaudible 00:33:43] this and yes, I agree with you, the government should do something similar like they did for corn and soybeans? Do you hear a lot of that as a farmer or are farmers kind of resistant and just waiting to see what happens? Are they scared?

Andrew Bader:
They’re definitely scared to change their whole operation. When you’re growing corn and soybeans, you’re buying combines and planters that can grow hemp or grow corn and soybeans. But a lot of the same equipment can be used for hemp. It really would take a specialized harvester.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Andrew Bader:
And farmers want to see profit. They know year in and year out that they’re going to make money off corn and they can take it somewhere at the end of the growing season. Right now, if you’re a hemp farmer, you put that seed in the ground, comes harvest time and you might not have a place to take it. So-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, that’s scary.

Andrew Bader:
… if we can give them guaranteed contracts, if we can prove to them that it can be profitable, yeah, I think they’ll definitely hop on board.

Matt Baum:
So they change the laws, we’ll say tomorrow, and you can go to your family and you go, “Mom, dad, enough of this corn business, enough of this soybeans. We’re growing hemp. The laws are changed.” Are your parents going for it or are they going, “That’s nice, sweetie. We’ll talk about it.”?

Andrew Bader:
I think there’s places that it’ll grow better.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. Than Nebraska really?

Andrew Bader:
Well, in Western Nebraska, the land is cheaper.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Andrew Bader:
It’s just cheaper out there. Around Eastern Nebraska, we got highly productive soil that can be used to produce highly yielding crops.

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure.

Andrew Bader:
I think if we could take land that’s underutilized and grow hemp with it, that would be the best solution.

Matt Baum:
I totally agree. Yeah. Sandy soil out West and over farmed soil.

Andrew Bader:
And hemp loves sandy soil here. And here by the river, you don’t want to pump thousands of dollars into fertilizer, seeds and [inaudible 00:35:46] away, but just grow some hemp out there and [inaudible 00:35:53].

Matt Baum:
It’s a weed, and it’s going to grow?

Andrew Bader:
Absolutely. There was some hemp growing in the corner of one of our soybean fields one year and it was 15 feet tall and not a weed under it.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, yeah. We talked about that with a guy a while ago that was on the show that was talking about how his father actually worked for University of Kansas. They had a government grant basically to try and kill wild hemp, and this was when the prohibition was just kicking in. They literally put poison in packs on students and sent them out to spray hemp plants with it and they couldn’t kill it. It wouldn’t die. It kept coming back. This was leftover hemp from back in the day that was grown by hemp farmers by the river and stuff like that where they couldn’t grow vegetables as well, or they couldn’t grow corn or soybeans as well. They grew hemp in their crappy fields and it was unstoppable. So maybe that’s how we save Western Nebraska. I don’t know. I hope so.

Andrew Bader:
Yes, and if corn and soybean prices ever dropped, we can start producing hemp right here in Eastern Nebraska.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely, absolutely. Andrew, it’s been really good talking with you, man. I don’t want to keep you all night. You’re a farmer. You’re hardworking guy. I get it. Keep printing those sunglasses, and we appreciate you coming on the show, man. I appreciate what you’re doing right here in Nebraska. It’s so great to see somebody doing it.

Andrew Bader:
Thanks for having me. We’ll see what we can do with it.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
Most definitely. I want to thank Andrew again for coming on the show. It was really cool to talk to somebody this early in their startup that’s doing something that I didn’t realize pretty much anyone could do from their basement right now with hemp plastic. And if you want to hear more about that story I was telling Andrew about Kansas and their half-cocked plan to stamp out wild hemp back in the day, check out my Kansas Hemp Stories podcast featuring Kelly Ripple. It’s a great episode. And of course, I’ll have links to it in the show notes for this episode.

Matt Baum:
Thank you for tuning in to another exciting episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcasts. We’ll be back next week where hopefully, I’m going to be talking about Delta-8-THC. Well, it’s new and quite honestly, I don’t know a whole lot about it. But good news is we have a Delta-8 FAQ, F-A-Q that is, over at ministryofhemp.com. You should go check out right now so to get you a primer for the discussion we’re going to have. I know I need to read it because I know very little on the subject. Also huge thanks to BFF, Blue Forest Farms, for partnering with us today. Don’t forget to check out BFF hemp and use that code ministry to get 20% off your first purchase.

Matt Baum:
And if you want to say thanks to us, you could head over to patreon\ministryofhemp and become a Ministry of Hemp Insider. Any amount you give supports this show, it makes you an insider and it gets you access to podcast extras. It gets you access to early articles and all kinds of extra stuff that we put up there. It is the best way to show that you not only care about hemp and this information, but you want other people to hear it too and you support people that are out there educating and telling the truth about hemp and how it really can change the world. And thank you to everybody that already is a Ministry of Hemp Insider. I’ll have a link to our patreon in the show notes as well.

Matt Baum:
And speaking of our show notes, here at Ministry of Hemp, we believe that an accessible world is a better world for everyone. So you can find a complete written transcript of this episode in the show notes as well. And if that’s not enough, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram. We’re all over the place and we’re always posting great hemp educational stuff and reposting our buddy stuff too. So it’s a great way to find new labels, hear news from other sites we trust and work with and stay up on all the hemp news. That’s about it for this episode. I like to get out of here the same way every time. I always say, remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions, will you? This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp signing off.

The post 3D Printing Hemp Plastic, With Andrew Bader of Corfiber appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

First, our host Matt begins the Ministry of Hemp podcast with a word about our new Best CBD Pre-Rolls 2020 article. It’s full of great info pertaining to pre-rolled CBD cigarettes and hemp joints, which a lot of you have been asking about lately.

In the main conversation, Matt talks with Jordan Hinshaw, CEO of GreenTek Packaging. GreenTek’s misson is to replace everyday plastics with eco-friendly hemp plastic. The two talk about the benefits of not just hemp plastics but pairing them with other bioplastics too. They compare hemp and regular plastic in both strength, applications, and sustainability. Plus they discuss Greentek’s latest venture, Hemptensils which they hope to become a responsible replacement for single-use plastic silverware.

About Jordan Hinshaw & GreenTek Packaging

The Son of Major Leaguer George Hinshaw and a bilingual Los Angeles teacher/principal, Jordan developed a unique perspective on American Exceptionalism in the diverse city of Long Beach, CA. Having spent the early part of his twenties living and working in 20 states, Mexico, Canada, and briefly in Japan, he grew a clear understanding of the impact of climate change and plastic waste on the environment.

Idolizing the work of William H. Deming, Jordan’s belief in the future strength of the American economy being based on domestic manufacturing and renewable resources has guided his work towards innovations in industrial hemp. Following stints with both manufacturing and fulfillment companies whose supply chains were entrenched overseas, Jordan, along with a team of industry resources engineers andadvisors, established GreenTek in 2019. Now, they work to grow its offerings of eco-friendly packaging and housewares using domestic hemp and other plant feedstocks.

Brought to you by Canvas 1839

This episode is brought to you with help from our partners at Canvas 1839. This Austin, TX brand creates high quality CBD oil and CBD topicals using Colorado-grown, full-spectrum hemp extract. They develop their great products with the help of their chief science officer, Dr. Kyle Hammerick, a Stanford graduate.

We’re big fans of Canvas 1839 products and think you should try them too. And right now you can get 15% off your order just for being a listener to this show. Head to canvasrelief.com and use the code friend15 and you get 15% off your purchase. Thanks again, Canvas, for making this episode possible.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

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Bioplastics and hemp utensils: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 55 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “CBD Testing & Stopping Bad CBD Oil”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast brought to you by Ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education.

Matt Baum:
(singing)

Matt Baum:
Today on the show, we’re going to talk about hemp plastics. What are we really talking about, when we talk about hemp plastic? Let’s be honest, we’re talking about garbage, because plastic makes up not only the bulk of our garbage that we throw away, but it also sticks around longer than just about anything we throw away. Today on the show, I’m going to talk to a guy named Jordan Hinshaw. He’s the CEO of GreenTek Plastics. He is working on incorporating hemp plastic, into some very simple every day things that we use, single use plastics like containers and utensils. It’s an awesome conversation. This is the kind of guy that’s really going to change things, and I’m so excited for you to hear from him.

Matt Baum:
But before we get into that, I want to let you know that, we are once again partnered with Canvas 1839. They’re centered out of Austin, Texas they’re buddies of ours, and they are a fantastic CBD brand. You guys are constantly hitting us up and asking us, “Who can I trust? Who should I buy from?” Canvas is one of those companies that is doing it right, and we are super proud to partner with them. Later on the show, I’m going to tell you how you can get 15% off your first order from Canvasrelief.com. Huge thanks to canvas for partnering with us.

Ministry of Hemp picks the best CBD pre-rolls

Matt Baum:
Before we get into the interview real quick, a lot of people have been contacting both the site and me, asking about pre-rolls, about smokable hemp. We’ve got a fantastic article up at Ministryofhemp.com right now. It’s all about the companies that are doing it right, from growing their hemp, to drying it, to putting it into their pre-roll, so you know exactly what you’re getting, and exactly what it’s supposed to be doing. Now, we’re not going to tell you that smoking is healthier. There’s dangers to smoking. Yes. If you’re inhaling smoke, you’re doing something that is not great for your lungs. But, if you’re doing it in limited amounts, to help with pain, appetite, anxiety, things that CBD really can help, there are very quick benefits to smoking hemp.

Matt Baum:
But, if you are going to smoke him, of course, we want you to do it with caution and in moderation. I’ve linked this article in the show notes for this episode. I’ve tried a few myself and I have to say, I really like smokable hemp, but again, only in moderation.

Meet Jordan Hinshaw

Matt Baum:
My conversation today is with Jordan Hinshaw. He’s the CEO of GreenTek Packaging, and Jordan is awesome. [inaudible 00:02:48] here he came up in the cannabis industry, and saw a real chance for hemp to become a plastic substitute, that could literally change the world. GreenTek is a manufacturing company out of the South Bay in Long Beach. They emphasize community improvement and sustainable economics. You’re going to hear him talk about responsibility before profit. I cannot stress how important and cool their mission is. This is my conversation with Jordan Hinshaw of GreenTek Packaging.

Matt Baum:
Jordan, before we get into it, why don’t you tell me what makes a guy like you decide, “Hey, I want to open a company that not only is dealing with hemp in a time where it’s still pretty wild west and scary, but I want to take on the plastics company, and show people that we can make the same stuff out of hemp.” Where did this come from? How does this start?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, no. It was kind of organic, no pun intended. The idea was floating around in Long Beach and in the cannabis space for some time, that you have all this raw material that’s not being used, and new advances in technology. So, I just wanted to be part of the forefront of that push, and saw it as purpose over profits. Coming out of my previous career, where I was well-paid for what I was doing and enjoyed it, but just didn’t feel like I was making an impact in a larger industrial way.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Luckily, I had the background of in engineering. I was at Cal Poly alumni, where I studied mechanical engineering, and Cal State, East Bay alumni, where I was doing industrial engineering studies in the off seasons on their quarter system, before that evaporated. So, I just felt like it was a next point for my skillsets and my interests.

Matt Baum:
So, what drew you specifically to the cannabis? Were you working in that? Cannabis obviously has been legal in California for quite a while, or did you just notice like, “Hey, there’s a real business here and a real opportunity that people aren’t seizing on.” Was it just that simple?

Jordan Hinshaw:
A bit of both. So, I’ve been a well integrated. Like you said, California has been legal for some time in the cannabis space. I myself, I’m a member of the Long Beach Collective Association, as is our company, and I had done some work with… I’ve worked through the supply chain of cannabis a bit, more on the logistics side, fulfillment, even down to being able to go to the fields and see how they operate, and do that side of the business since I was… I’m 30 now, so it’s about a decade ago when that started.

Matt Baum:
Wow.

Jordan Hinshaw:
It was just kind of the tinglings of someone who’s interested in that space, and understands and respects that it’s more than just psychoactives and good times. There’s actual industry and innovation going on.

Introducing GreenTek Packaging

Matt Baum:
Tell me about GreenTek. How did it start? Right now, you’re moving into the utensils, which is how I found you. I saw a press release and I was like, “This is freaking amazing and exactly the kind of stuff we need to be doing with hemp.” How did GreenTek get started? What was the first products?

Jordan Hinshaw:
The first products were all based on packaging for the cannabis industry. We were prototyping a ton of containers that had a balance of like rigid aspects with the base, and some elastomers that we were going to make them airtight, and try to offer something that was industrially compostable and made from plant based matter. We were courting some rather large pre-roll companies, like flower companies that were doing units at 50,000 or 100,000 per month, where we would justify some custom materials that were a bit over in the luxury range of pricing, but were environmentally much more beneficial.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, you’re making a statement, definitely. If you’re going to grow this stuff right, and you’re going to talk about how important it is to farm it, and do it the right way, you may as well package it the right way too, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Exactly. That’s all feedback from the consumer base. That’s all based on how people in general are moving in that direction. The companies don’t want to be too far behind it, so they’re trying to match solutions with revenue.

The challenges of developing hemp bioplastics

Matt Baum:
So, what was the most difficult part? Like when you guys started this and you decided, “Okay, we want to move into hemp plastics and whatnot,” we call it hemp plastics, but there’s no petroleum in it. What was the hardest part in developing that kind of stuff, and also getting it to the consumer, who’s going to buy it and package their stuff? When I say the consumer, the companies. Was it difficult to sell them on the idea that like, “Hey, this is going to be a little more expensive, but look, it does the same job. Not just that, you can throw this away and not feel guilty about it.” Was that all it took to sell them on it?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. So yeah, if you were able to make it as concise and well put as you did, absolutely. It’s a massive undertaking.

Matt Baum:
If you guys are hiring, let me know. This sounds cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Very well done, right? It was a massive undertaking, and a supply chain management challenge where, you got new infrastructures, new machinery that’s being placed around the nation, farmers that are just getting into their swing of things in terms of production and specifics of how it comes out. So, it’s working with those groups collectively, understanding our own capabilities, to be able to offer pricing that is measurable to the value add in their operations.

Matt Baum:
Right, right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
We’ve had some swings and misses for sure. We’ve had some really big players that came to us and asked us to work with them, and then kind of got an idea where the pricing was, and was like, “Well, we’re going to hold off a little bit longer.” But, we’ve also had a lot of smaller businesses that are much closer to their consumer, that are much more quick to say, “We understand the intrinsic value of what you’re doing here,” because the externalities of us continuing to make plastics are outweighing the small pennies that we’re saving by using them.

Why bioplastics are more expensive

Matt Baum:
Absolutely. Let me ask you, when you said you had like some bigger companies that came in, and they looked at the pricing, and obviously they’re going off bottom line in a case like that, is it just a matter of catching up technology-wise to bring that price down? Or, is it a matter of more people growing hemp? Is it a matter of more processing, better processing? What do you think pushes that price point down to a point where you can say something like, “Hey McDonald’s or Hey, Walmart…” Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of health food stores and the whole foods and whatnot, but they’re not going to change the world at the price point they’re selling food at. We’re going to change the world by getting this stuff in frigging Walmart, you know?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right.

Matt Baum:
What do you see as the biggest hurdle to getting that price down? What do you think?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. I think it’s mainly the second by comparison of those aspects. Scale really is a huge thing, and you have to walk that up. It’s speculative to guess that everything is going to go perfectly well when you go from selling 100,000 units to 100 million units.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, there’s a brick by brick aspect of building the industry, where you want traction to grow in an organic manner, to a point where you can be confident to say, “Hey, look McDonald’s, we have this proven process here. Delivering at this scale would allow us to be price competitive within 10 or 20%,” and have them say, “Yeah, yeah, we see the work you’ve done. We believe in that enough to invest, and make that switch over, without having to deal with all of kinks and issues that any expanding business would deal with.”

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Jordan Hinshaw:
On the other side, yes, supplies. There’s actually a glut of a material right now. I think last year, industrial hemp acreage increased to about 125,000 acres in the nation, up from the tens of thousands a few years back. 60% plus of that didn’t have scheduled offtake. So, you’ve got a lot of material out there, that’s going to actually push down the price the more of it you use. But, you just need to be organized supply chain wise, where your processing is within range of where you’re doing it, and you’re able to coordinate all the pricing, so that you can guarantee that, “Hey McDonald’s, you will have it, as we say it will be,” for example.

Creating Hemptensils hemp utensils

Matt Baum:
Let me ask you, as far as… I was reading the press cue you guys have coming out, and it sounds like this utensil thing, people are pretty excited about this. I thought it was cool as hell. But, take me through it. We don’t have to do the hardcore science or anything, but take me through the process, like, the hemp comes in and it ends up as plastic. How does that work? That just sounds nuts.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, pretty cool stuff. Essentially, anytime you work with the stalks of the plant, the lignocellulose, you have an opportunity to extract the sugars from it, which build the starches. In that process, you’re creating the same polymers that are used in petroleum plastic. It’s when they make it from oil or in a large amount of cases, natural gas.

Matt Baum:
Literally the same polymers? Like no difference? That’s-

Jordan Hinshaw:
Similar. There are differences, depending on the formulation that you use. There’s mixes of sugarcane, of cornstarch, of different materials that have different properties, and they tend to… You tend to trade off between sturdiness or toughness versus flexibility, which has been a pretty big challenge for a lot of a lot of our products. Where, the more hemp fiber you have in it, the stronger and lighter weight it is by density, but oftentimes it doesn’t have that type of like pop-pop capability that people are often used to.

Matt Baum:
Basically, you’re not using the leaves, you’re using the stems, and you’re de-coordinating them, if you will.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Decorticating. Yes, that’s-

Matt Baum:
Decorticating, got it.

Jordan Hinshaw:
… That’s a word if you type into Word, it will always have a little red squiggly underneath it.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, yeah. I even practiced saying it, and I still got it wrong. That’s great. But from that point, it comes in as like little pellets basically, that you’re turning it into? Then those pellets, are you literally melting them into forms from there?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. That’s the process, whether by injection or extrusion, in some cases some compression molding and thermoforming, to heat it to 190 degrees, 210, 240, and press it into an extremely heavy tooling. In some cases, 1400 pound steel item that is water cooled around it, so that once it goes in, it’s able to pop out as the perfect shape of what you made it, designed to be.

Matt Baum:
Just like you would with plastic basically, but no petroleum.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, yeah, a very similar process. Absolutely. The only difference obviously is in processing temperatures, and cycle times, and aspects that have to do with how the material wears on the tooling. So, it’s not as transferable, where in a lot of cases, the material dictates how you actually build the tooling. Ours are unique to these types of materials.

Comparing hemp bioplastic and petro-plastic

Matt Baum:
Let me ask you differences between this hemp plastic and petroleum plastic. Is it a matter of like strength or transparency? What are the major differences? Are there pros, cons? Let’s just take the ecology side out of it for a minute, and just discuss raw pros and cons of stability, what it looks like, stuff like that.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. So, the material we’ve been working with has a really natural color to it, that natural hemp brown. So, transparent items have not been… We’ve not been able to achieve that aspect. But, you can always add color additives that are nontoxic, if you so choose, to make it black or brown or blue, whatever other colors that are optional.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, clear is not really an option yet.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Not in hemp, no. Obviously, the biomass itself has that natural tinge, and so you’d be hard pressed to try to make that-

Matt Baum:
It’s green, right? What are you going to do?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, exactly. But luckily, it’s a nice hazelnut color, hazelnut hemp.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, it’s kind of got a nice visual aesthetic to it. So, we’re not too ashamed of that.

A message from Canvas 1839

Matt Baum:
Let’s take a quick break, to talk about our partner this week, Canvas 1839, centered out of Austin, Texas, which also happens to be the de facto home of Ministry of Hemp, because Kit lives there. Canvas strives to make products with the highest efficacy based on proprietary science, with the help of their Chief Science Officer and Stanford grad. Dr. Kyle Hammerick’s pioneering work in nanoscale biology. Canvas currently offers a relief oil that is crafted with Colorado grown, full spectrum hemp extract, grown under organic practices to support your wellbeing in mind and body.

Matt Baum:
Each one ounce bottle contains 300 milligrams of CBD, which is 10 milligrams per dropper. Now, they sent me a bottle and I have to say, normally, 10 milligrams of CBD isn’t enough for me, but I’ve really been enjoying it. I’ve been taking the relief oil in the mornings with my coffee, and I feel like it brings me in for a soft landing, as I get to work. I’m focused and I’m awake, but the Canvas relief oil keeps me from my usual ADD morning coffee rush. It’s actually helped with some of the aches and pains that I’ve been dealing with, since I started boxing training again.

Matt Baum:
They also offer a luxurious relief cream that is specifically formulated for optimal transdermal penetration and absorption, which means, when you rub it on your skin, it actually goes into your skin. It leaves a very clean skin field with no residue whatsoever. There’s 500 milligrams of CBD in each two jar. My wife, who’s an aerobics instructor and owns a gym has been using it, and she loves it. It’s become a part of her post-workout shower regime. Canvas is a company that is just doing it right. That’s why we’re proud to partner with them. They know their farmers, they have third party lab results readily available. Right now, you can get 15% off your order, just for being a listener to this show. Head to Canvasrelief.com and use the code Friend15, and you get 15% off your purchase.

Matt Baum:
I would recommend their starter pack. That features the two products they sent me, the relief oil and the relief cream, and both are fantastic. That’s Friend15, all one word. Of course, I will have a link to Canvasrelief.com in the show notes, for this episode. Now, back to the show.

Bioplastics vs. fossil fuels

Jordan Hinshaw:
Besides that, obviously the heat implications, depending on product thickness, it’s designed to allow heat and bacteria to eat away at it.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, while it holds up on a shelf just fine for years, if you do apply it to higher pressure, a higher heat environment, it’s going to start to soften in a way that actually no other plastic really does. We did some testing on some basic corn plastics, and they tend to break at a certain temperature change.

Matt Baum:
They get real brittle, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
[crosstalk 00:19:16] shaped. Yeah, brittle. Whereas the hemp plastic, actually, it doesn’t get brittle, it gets really elastic. It’s really flexible.

Matt Baum:
Really?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. So, we were testing it out, we dumped it in boiling waters for a period of time. All we had to do was dip it back in cold water and it solidified right back into it’s shape, and we were able to bang it against the table.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
It was really interesting.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool. Do you think that’s a difference in sugar content of the corn versus the hemp basically?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. The content of the hemp itself, the nature of fibers, just their resilience lends towards that more flexibility under pressure, rather than just snapping overall.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, what about raw strength of the product itself? How does that compare to like plastic? Is it stronger, the same, not quite as strong? What are we talking?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Rank well, as it’s stronger. There’s evidence there since the ’40s, where they were doing a Ford, if you’ve ever heard of that experiment, he was putting it in his-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, his car and stuff, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
In the walls of his car, and taking hammers to it. That’s actually still been going on. I believe Mercedes, if not BMW, has a line of doors, their lining that’s more than carbon fiber, it’s hemp fiber.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. I just interviewed those guys actually a couple of weeks ago.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Very nice. Essentially, strength is never a trade off. You’re actually increasing your density. So, compared to most of the exact same weight, you’re going to have a stronger product for certain. The main differences are more chemical based where, there’s a lot of compatiblizers, additives and such that they add, that often have these toxins and stuff. Without getting too much into it, that can affect temperature and barrier properties, where they’re able to resist more caustic environments.

Matt Baum:
Right, right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
These are for your lunch at the break room.

Matt Baum:
Right. This is stuff that you want to disappear when you throw it away. You don’t want it to stick around forever.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
Speaking of temperature, obviously plastic burns at a certain temperature, and it gives off all kinds of caustic fumes and stuff. What about hemp plastic? Does it burn the same? What happens when you apply fire to it?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Like you said, with little petroleum plastics, and it’s a great question, they do emit a lot of greenhouse gases as they burn up or break down. Carbon dioxide is released as a process of breaking down most… That’s when they say it’s carcinogenic, whatever. But, the hemp itself is more of a plant based matter. So, it has less of a negative impact in that way. But that being said, I have not actually set these on fire on purpose. So, I’ll have to add that to the list.

Matt Baum:
Would you be willing to burn something right now?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. You know what? That’s a great point.

The biodegradability of hemp plastic

Matt Baum:
I’m just curious. You start thinking about the ecology side, which I want to talk about next. Obviously, this stuff isn’t meant to be permanent. The idea is, this is temporary packaging for a cupcake, or your lunch, or something like that. What’s the difference if I take, let’s say a hemp packaging that is like a bag, for example, and I bury it next to a plastic bag in my backyard, or maybe I don’t even bury it, I sit them outside in my backyard. That plastic bag is going to be different thousands of years. How long… What happens to this hemp bag? How long does it take to break down?

Jordan Hinshaw:
In an aerobic environment like that, where it’s just sitting on top of the ground-

Matt Baum:
Right. Aerobic meaning air can get to it, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Sorry, say it again?

Matt Baum:
Aerobic meaning air can get to it more or less.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right, right, right. You’re still going to be facing dozens of years, where the hemp plastic will hang around, because it’s actually more about the bacteria and the soil, like the environment itself, that’s allowing it to become a food source for, well I wouldn’t say fauna, but for the environment around it. So, what you’re really looking for is for it to be able to get back into the food chain, or the environment of soil or dirt or, and obviously ideally a compost. But, if it does get in those environments with ability to break down, then it could be as short as six months.

Matt Baum:
Wow.

Jordan Hinshaw:
How I see it evaporate.

Matt Baum:
That’s crazy.

Jordan Hinshaw:
The trade off there… Yeah, it’s pretty big. That’s why we’re really concentrated on pushing this element because, we understand that there’s a ton of politicians, a ton of legislation that is looking to solve all these problems of getting away from plastics, but that requires development of these composting centers, circular economies, and production of plant based materials.

Matt Baum:
So, I can compost. I compost on my backyard right now. I can compost this. If you send me something in hemp plastic, I can take it out, eat it, have a nice little meal and then throw the scraps, the vegetable scraps and the bag into my compost, and it’ll break down.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. About half of all the industrial composting centers, they do that on a pretty regular basis. I think it’s important that we try to move away from recycling.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Not move away from it necessarily, but look to materials that are going to provide some alternatives, just for the obvious reason that for one, a lot of recycling doesn’t get done. And then two, these plant based materials actually are not ideal for recycling. These are designed to be that type of degradable material. So, we’ve got some different experiments going on right now, we’ve got the B5511, which is an [inaudible 00:25:29] one, where they’re doing it in a backyard compost center. Then, there’s a few different methods that we’re testing out, so that we can really get a hard number on exactly how long they’ll take. But, that’s the idea. We really want to see higher quality compost going on, and we want to give them the feed stock that makes that possible.

The demand for hemp plastic utensils

Matt Baum:
And making a temporary product, like you said, that we don’t have to worry about. When you’re done with it, you don’t have to feel guilty. Speaking of which, let’s talk about the utensils. You guys have a big thing coming out right now. You just partnered with British Columbia. Can you name who it is yet, or is it still let’s keep it under wraps?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Well, we’ve already been under a distribution agreement with them, so it’s not necessarily a secret. It’s a company called Follow The Leader Distribution Company. They were really adamant about offering new eco-friendly solutions for packaging in that legal cannabis market there, and have since expanded. So, we were wanting to make sure that we sent them what they needed to that market there. Obviously, without overshooting, I’d say that the Canadians are in the advanced awareness state or acceptance state of the challenges of climate change, and are constantly looking to invest and find ways to bring those to fruition.

Jordan Hinshaw:
We’ve got a number of distributors that are spread out, and it just happens at two of them are in Canada, one there in BC, and a new one that we’re working on in Toronto. So, it’s no secret or anything, but it was encouraging to know that companies from all around the globe have been reaching out to us to see, “Hey, what can we do?” Which is just ironic in the sense that, we’re here in one of the top economies in the world, and these other countries are saying, “Hey, let’s-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, we like to make fun of Canada, like they’re our little brother, but they typically make us look pretty bad when it comes to stuff like climate science.

Jordan Hinshaw:
You got it.

Matt Baum:
It’s sad, unfortunately. Now, tell me about the utensils. How did you develop this? It’s like a fork, and a spork and a spoon, but they’re made of hemp plastic. It almost looks like they’re made out of wood, because of the color you said, that they have, and straws as well, hemp straws. Tell me they’re better than paper straws, because paper straws, they’re the worst.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Absolutely, yeah. The hemp straws are the big winner. We’re trying to get that prepared for a much larger scale launch because, we understand there’s just so many bars, restaurants, places of business, that are looking for an-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, absolutely, coffee shops.

Jordan Hinshaw:
… Alternative. In my mom’s generation, they were using paper straws, so it’s not a revolutionary thing to have them, and nobody liked them then either.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, they were garbage.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. The ideas, bamboo… I go to the store and cost-plus goods, and they’ve got bamboo straws that they’re selling for $1 a unit. We just knew that there’s got to be a middle ground there between the paper straws, which are doing a good thing and, and trying to reduce that. But using hemp as a feedstock, a material not neither a crop, a food crop nor forestry, rather than that paper. So, we’ve been experimenting with that for the last six weeks, and trying to get everything on point to break that the hemp straw out.

Matt Baum:
That’s so cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
As far as the utensils, I’ve got a partner who helps with the CAD design, and try to engineer it based on material specs. Then, you get a large EDM machine out and start cutting steel. There’s steps and stages, but it’s been a fun process for sure.

Matt Baum:
My wife and I, we have those metal straws you can buy, and that’s great, you’re not throwing away plastic. But, you are introducing more metal straws, that are also made with gnarly chemicals, and they’re to be around forever. Whereas like the bamboo straw, like you said, great idea, too expensive. It’s just too expensive. Bamboo is an amazing plant, but it doesn’t grow as fast as hemp. It’s not as cheap and easy to grow. The same thing with reusable bags, and water bottles and stuff like that, it’s great, and we should be doing that stuff. But, we’re also creating an army of bags and water bottles, that will be around for the next 100,000 years, you know?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah.

The future of GreenTek Packaging

Matt Baum:
So, what do you think the future is for you guys? Where do you go from here? What’s next?

Jordan Hinshaw:
It’s really interesting that you say that. I think with the reusable bags, there’s some stat. You’ve got to use them at least 28 times for them to even justify, because of the additional industrial waste or impact from making them. A lot of steel, the metals are no different in that way. That’s the idea is that, we believe that hemp itself is that carbon neutral solution. So, obviously as it grows, especially purpose grown for fiber, it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than any other crop.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, what you’re finding is that, by growing it and then using it in manufacturing processes, which often in bioplastics already have lower emissions, you’re striking basically a sustainable supply chain. So, that’s kind of what we’re focused on. We’re trying to say, “Listen, it’s not just about the actual bioplastic result, and the fact that it’s better at the end of life. It’s about the entire chain, and how we’re using our domestic economy to its fullest, our own agricultural resources to develop products, innovate in those products, and become more independent as a nation, creating jobs, all that.” So, that’s our focus. We’ve got some different pilot programs for some technology to be developed, that’s going to make it as cost competitive as possible. But, we just understand that it’s an invigorating leg up for America.

Matt Baum:
Definitely, definitely.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, that’s kind of where we see ourselves going.

Matt Baum:
How far away am I from hemp plastic bags in my grocery store? What am I talking 5 years, 15 years? What do you think?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Certainly within five years, I think you could see that. I know there are some groups that are already trying to develop some blown film options with that. Again, I think it’s going to be a matter of which companies buy-in, to lock in those kinds of purchase orders, and justify those supply chains first. But, I think within the next five years, you’re going to see some options that are those lines. If it took 10, then it was a policy problem. It was something to do with-

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Jordan Hinshaw:
… Our nation not invigorating and pushing for these types of things. But, there’s some cool stuff coming down the wire.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool to hear you say that though, because just to hear someone that’s in the industry say like, “Yeah, we can do this, and it is going to take a few years, but it’s not going to take 10 years. We’re learning, we’re kicking ass here, and it’s more a matter of don’t hold us back, than it is, we need to come up with brand new technology and the future we’re talking about.” I’m really happy to hear you say that. Let me ask you, what is the one plastic product that you are most excited about replacing with hemp plastics, that you think makes the biggest difference in the world?

Bioplastics and a more sustainable world

Jordan Hinshaw:
The biggest difference in the world? Well, let’s start from top down. If you look at 50% of all plastics that are made, those are usually single use. So, you’re really talking about these subscription food boxes, these take to go boxes and take out.

Matt Baum:
Yes.

Jordan Hinshaw:
You’re looking at things that are consumed in the pounds per day, per person, that really would impact the waste that’s gathering up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now. Some of the most common ones are our medical containers, pharmaceuticals and such, that really could be made from bioplastic materials, and are shipping out again all around the world. Being here in Long Beach, when I go to the beach, which I love my city, but it’s not one of the cleanest beaches by far.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I’ve been there. I know what you mean.

Jordan Hinshaw:
That’s what you find.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. You find hypodermic needles and pill boxes and stuff, yeah, unfortunately.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Unfortunately. It doesn’t make me happy. But, those are some of the things that I think, if those were integrated from renewable resources, you’d have a real acknowledgeable impact in plastic waste.

Matt Baum:
Making a real change. You’re absolutely right. It’s that crap that we don’t think about, that we use every day, the container for your pills, the container your lunch came in, and stuff like that. How far off do you think we are from developing a clear plastic? Is that out of the question or is it just a matter of like, “Hey, we’ll figure it out. It’s coming.”

Jordan Hinshaw:
Again, it’s just material sources. When you’re talking about bioplastics in general, there’s a lot of options, from the material for tapioca all the way to sugarcane.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Now they’ve got some mycelium with mushrooms, and different options.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, that’s really cool too. They’re doing a lot of stuff there.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. We’ve been wanting to work with them for some time. They’re so overwhelmed with demand themselves, that you’ve got to go down there and knock on their door in-person.

Matt Baum:
I’m sure. That’s a good problem to have though. That means they’re busy. That means they’re kicking ass, hopefully.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s a product that people want, and it’s a classy product. It’s a really nice looking final product. But no, my point just being that, is that technology coming? Yes. Is it something in the immediate future? I don’t think so. If you choose to do it with some of the older materials, obviously bioplastics have been around for much longer than you’d imagine, when you don’t involve the hemp itself, you can find some clearer plastics. I think World Centric makes some clear bioplastics, although I’m not sure exactly what their formulation is, in terms of petrol, corn, whatever the balance may be.

Matt Baum:
But, you’re saying there’s no reason why there couldn’t be a combination of two things. You have your hemp plastic thing on the bottom, and then on top, maybe you have a mycelium plastic or some other type of bioplastic.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Exactly, yeah. Again, it’s just going from, right now, I think 1% of all plastics are made from bio renewable resources. So, it’s going from that to an increase in margin, increase in part of the market, where you’re going to find those type of combinations and solutions are more prevalent.

Matt Baum:
I ask because I was a chef for a long time, and working in kitchens, clear plastics, we literally go through tons of that stuff. You’ve got to be able to see what’s in it. So, when you’re in a hurry, you open it up and there’s a bag of label that and you can see it’s perfectly good, we’ll just grab it and go. When that bag is empty, you can’t reuse it because the health code won’t even let you. That’s against the law. You have to throw that crap away. Every time I did it, it just felt gross. Every time you wrap something in cling wrap, every time you threw something in a freezer bag, and you thought it out and then you just throw it away, it’s perfectly good, it’s going to be around for the next 50,000 years, but you can’t use it again. That’s the kind of stuff that’s another single use plastics, if we can start to replace that.

Jordan Hinshaw:
That’s what the overarching… GreenTek Packaging, obviously we focus on the division, and manufacturing these products, developing them, and providing them to the market, but in reality, GreenTek Planet is like, “Well, let’s combine those different resources.” Like for example, with the cellophanes, you’ve got some seaweed aspects there, that are moving towards making these thinner, more clear or see-through materials. Those are going to be the type of advances that cover a lot of the more unseen or low weight solutions for the bags and the options that you’re talking about. I think that that’s really where the pendulum is going to need to swing, to see those turtle suffocating items, not end up in the cycle. Again, I’m not sure to what level or what advancement specifically is going to turn that tide, but I know that we are a part of the group that’s pushing for that.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, obviously it’s been a great opportunity to chat with you, and I’m thankful that we did connect. We’ve been doing a lot in terms of outreach, and understanding that while some of the larger companies are going to be challenges to knock the door of, it’s a grassroots movement. It’s the people behind this that really make this a viable objective. So, as far as plugging us, I’d say, come reach out if you guys are interested. If anybody has any custom projects or ideas that they want to see come to fruition, we’re available, Greentekplanet.com, and shop utensils, if people wanted to buy some of the products.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Our big push and our big reason for doing businesses is to impact disadvantaged communities. I came from one, the north side of Long Beach, and I understand that the waste ends up in these places, I understand that the jobs don’t go to these places, and that the community needs help. So, working with that, there’s a lot of community events, a lot of cleanups, a lot of food giveaways. We were doing some last week that… I just really want to be able to connect with the city on, and my team on. So, if there’s any questions, I’d definitely be open.

Matt Baum:
Cool. It sounds like you guys are doing it right. You’re buying American, you’re using American hemp, you’re repurposing waste hemp to do this stuff, you’re putting jobs in the community, this is the dream, right? This is what it’s all about. Let’s get-

Jordan Hinshaw:
Living the dream brother.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
Yeah, let’s get behind this people, come on. I want to send huge, thanks to Jordan for coming on the show. I will have links to GreenTek Packaging in the show notes for this episode, so you can check out all the cool things they’re doing over there. Like he said, if you have custom needs and you want to work with hemp plastic, they are the company to contact. Now, not to get too political here, but listen to what he was saying about American jobs, and working in the community, and using American hemp, and keeping it all here without any need for petroleum, and other gnarly chemicals that are not only bad for the environment, but we even outsource from other countries. I can’t think of anything more American than what is going on in the hemp movement right now, with companies like GreenTek Packaging. I’m just happy they’re out there.

Matt Baum:
(Singing)

Matt Baum:
That’s about it for this episode. But again, I want to thank Canvas CBD for partnering with us. Don’t forget, go to Canvasrelief.com, use the code Friend15, for 15% off your purchase, and let them know that you want to help them, and you think it’s awesome that they are supporting ministryofhemp.com. Speaking of supporting ministryofhemp.com, if you like what we’re doing here, and you think that hemp can probably change the world, head overdue Patreon\ministryofhemp, and become a Ministry of Hemp insider. Any amount you give makes you an insider, and it gives you access to early articles, podcast extras, and all kinds of other stuff. But more than that, it helps us get the good word of hemp out to other people.

Matt Baum:
Also, leave us a star rating, or a written review on wherever you’re listening to the podcast. This show is available anywhere you can download podcasts, and your reviews and star ratings and thumbs up or whatever they have, it really helps put us in front of other listeners. But, we don’t just do it for listeners either. Here at the Ministry of Hemp, we believe that an accessible world is a better world for everyone. So, we have a full written transcript for this episode in the show notes, over at ministryofhemp.com. Speaking of ministryofhemp.com, don’t forget to check out our latest article on the best CBD pre-rolls of 2020 that I mentioned in the beginning of the show.

Matt Baum:
If that’s not enough, you can always find us on all our social medias, at Ministryofhemp\ministryofhemp. We’re always kicking out great links to quality companies, quality news stories, and good old hemp education. All right. It’s time for me to get out of here, and I like to end the show the same way every week. I like to say, remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions will you? This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp, signing off.

The post Bioplastics And Hemp Utensils With GreenTek Packaging appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

In this week’s episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast it’s time for another Q&A session with Matt and Ministry of Hemp’s Editor in Chief Kit O’Connell. This round of questions touches on everything from where to buy quality CBD, vaping CBD safely, and industrial uses for hemp like plastic and fabric.

Sponsored by LifePatent

Thanks to our friends at LifePatent, one of our Top CBD Brands, for sponsoring this episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast. Check out their site now to try free samples of their great sleep capsules.

We’re also big fans of their CBD-A tincture, which we reviewed last year. Our editor Kit still frequently reaches for this product for help with his chronic pain.

Send us your feedback!

We want to hear from you too. Send us your questions and you might hear them answered on future shows like this one! Send us your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, email matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com.

Thanks again for listening! Contact sales@ministryofhemp.com if you’re interested in sponsoring our podcast or other content on our website.

Answering common hemp & CBD questions

Below you’ll find answers to some common CBD and hemp questions like we address in this episode of our podcast.

• Full spectrum vs. broad spectrum vs. CBD isolate — which should you buy?
• For hemp fabric, we recommend Nature’s Fabrics and Hemp Fabric Lab.
• Using hemp as a sustainable packaging alternative
• Why isn’t hemp plastic everywhere if it’s more sustainable?

Oh, and one of our callers had a doctor concerned about the calcium content in hemp milk. It turns out hemp milk has the highest calcium content of any alternative milk.

Hemp questions answered with Matt & Kit: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete written transcript for this episode:

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Ministry of Hemp podcast was brought to you by LifePatent, purveyors of high-quality CBD products that just happen to be one of our favorite brands too. They care very deeply about their customers because when it comes down to it, LifePatent understands their customers are people seeking relief. You can learn more about the entire line of CBD-related products at lifepatent.com.

Matt Baum: 00:31 Welcome to another episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Today on the show, I am joined once again by ministryofhemp.com’s editor-in-chief and all around brilliant guy, Kit O’Connell. We are going to be answering your hemp-related questions on our second Ministry of Hemp Q&A show. I am super excited, so let’s get to it, shall we? Kit, welcome back for another Ministry of Hemp Q&A. It is always good to have you, sir.

Kit O’Connell: 01:11 It’s good to be here. I enjoy dropping in for these.

Matt Baum: 01:14 This is where I bring you on to do my job for me and I appreciate that. Thank you. We got a few voicemails today and, again, the questions are kind of all over the place, which is great. If you guys want to call, like I said at the beginning of the show, you can always do so. Just call us at 402-819-6417 and leave your message with your hemp-related question. Kit, should we get into the first one? You ready?

Kit O’Connell: 01:37 Let’s jump in.

Matt Baum: 01:38 All right. Here we go.

We don’t sell CBD, just review it

Speaker 4: 01:40 Hi, I’m trying to get ahold of the company that makes first-class, full-spectrum CBD, [inaudible 00:01:50] hemp oil. Please give me a call.

Matt Baum: 01:54 We do get a lot of calls like this. I wanted to play one, rather than responding to everybody and saying, “Hey, we don’t actually sell it.” Kit, maybe you can explain for people that are listening to the show where can they go to find quality hemp oil that they can trust?

Kit O’Connell: 02:09 Sure. Yeah. We don’t sell products. That is a common misconception that we get a lot of emails to about that. We’re trying to provide useful information and really clear, honest, transparent basics about what’s happening in the CBD and hemp industries. The good thing is we do have a lot of information. We’ve tried out a lot of different products and we list a lot of our favorites on our website. You can go right up to the top and search right where it says, “CBD Reviews.” We have a best CBD oil review, which is our favorite, overall brands in the industry. Under that, you’ll see breakdowns. If you’re looking for tinctures or a topical to apply to your sore muscles or gummies and so on, we’ve got all of that in there. We’ve recommended some of our favorite brands beyond that. We’ll put a link to this in the show notes.

Kit O’Connell: 03:04 We’ve written a couple articles about how you can pick a really good brand of CBD. Check the show notes for this or if you want to just go directly on our site, you can even just go search for the word. A good word to punch in is actually the word quality and that’ll bring up a couple articles about why quality matters in CBD and some guides and tips for picking the best products. In general, you want a brand, of course, that’s transparent, that’s offering third-party lab results. For a lot of people who are going to prefer that full-spectrum hemp extract, which has CBD plus traces, at least, of all the other compounds that are naturally occurring in the hemp plant. That’s a good choice for a lot of people.

Matt Baum: 03:51 It looks like some of our latest reviews, she was looking for hemp oil. Right now, we’ve got some of our top brands up there that include like Populum, Lazarus, Ananda, Everyday Optimal D-Stress, CBDfx and Joy Organics. Again, right under the CBD reviews, it’s the first link you’ll see, best CBD oil reviews. If you want to start there, can’t go wrong. Let’s go for our next question here.

Kit O’Connell: 04:17 Yup. Yup.

Questions about buying hemp fabric

Speaker 5: 04:18 Good morning. It is 2:39, eastern standard time in Columbus, Ohio. I’m calling. I’m an artist. I do turn tree limbs into Moses or as we say in Arabic, Musa’s staff, for my artwork, bags, wall hangings, what I call urban survival clothing, my own design and I wanted to know where I can buy hemp fabric. I’m retired. From Michigan, Detroit, but I live in Columbus, Ohio, right now, and I wanted to buy some hemp fabric. Probably will have to save up for it, but I would like to know how I can do that. Just happen to be up in the middle of the night like most artist’s are. A farmer who had done some clothing for some fashion show to the awareness of hemp farming, so African-American farmers, so I thought I would just research it on Facebook and I found you all. I was trying to find out … I’m 70 tomorrow on the 18th, September, so I’m trying to figure out how to use all this technology to find your podcast and listen to you. I hope you have it archived. Blessed to have found you. Much success.

Speaker 5: 05:29 Once in a blue moon at Trader Joe’s, we can find hemp milk, which is really neat. I have to look up the calcium content though. My doctor frowned when I mentioned it, but I’m like, “Whatever.” I like to try different milks. I used to farm and I get tired of that. I will look that up also. Any place I can find or buy hemp fabric in America. I saw one place in UK, but I don’t know if that’s legit or dependable or not. I would appreciate it. I will email you to send you my telephone number.

Speaker 5: 06:04 All right. Thank you. You guys have a blessed week, month and keep it going. I miss farming. I used to raise cows, sheep, goats, chickens and selling animals, slaughter them, sell them and then process the hide for artwork. I brought a few back with me to the city once I left the country down south. All right. Again, take care. Have a blessed, successful podcast. You’re growing. Take care. Bye-bye.

Matt Baum: 06:30 She sounds like the coolest. I really like her.

Kit O’Connell: 06:33 I want to hang out with her.

Matt Baum: 06:35 Totally.

Kit O’Connell: 06:35 Pop open a beer and talk about crafting. I’m a writer, so I’m up at 2:00 a.m., scribbling away-

Matt Baum: 06:43 Oh, yeah.

Kit O’Connell: 06:43 … sometimes getting my best ideas, so I totally get that. I think our caller is a great example too of how the stigma around hemp is disappearing because we are hearing from people from the older generations that are really interested in hemp. Some of them might not have been in the past. I don’t know about this caller, but a lot of them might have turned away from it because of the associations of it with the war on drugs and all that.

Matt Baum: 07:08 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 07:10 I love to see this kind of thing. This is great. In terms of the specific topic with hemp fabric, that is an area … Unfortunately, it’s hard to buy domestic, US-produced fully hemp fabric. That is one place that our video producer, Jessica, recommended to me because we had this question come in at least once before via email. What she recommended was this site called Nature’s Fabrics. Again, we’ll put this in the show notes, but it’s just Nature’s, with an S, Fabrics, again with an S, dot com. They do have a small collection of hemp fabric. That’s one of the only US sources that we’ve personally worked with.

Kit O’Connell: 07:54 We’ve also engaged with a company in India called Hemp Fabric Lab. Now you are obviously going to be paying a little more because of the international shipping, but one of the nice things about Hemp Fabric Lab is that they don’t have any minimum orders. They have several different hemp fabrics that they’ve made, as well as some blends of hemp with other fabrics. You can pick up just one yard of it to play with if you want or obviously make a big bulk order too. They’re really cool people. They’re working with some really interesting fashion designers. But, overall, some of their stuff is affordable, especially with that no minimum, so Hemp Fabric Lab. We’ll drop a link to them.

Kit O’Connell: 08:34 This is an area that we really hope is going to expand a lot-

Matt Baum: 08:38 Definitely.

Kit O’Connell: 08:38 … in the coming years.

Matt Baum: 08:39 Definitely. This is one of those areas where it is a little more expensive right now I’m sure, but the only reason that is, is because we don’t have as many producers yet.

Kit O’Connell: 08:47 Exactly.

Matt Baum: 08:47 As you see more producers getting in the game, we will see the price of hemp fabric come down.

Kit O’Connell: 08:54 We don’t have exact figures on this year, but we probably in the US grew, give or take, about 150,000 acres of hemp, let’s say as a generous figure. It’s probably a little less than that. Out of that 150 or so, from the experts I’ve spoken with, we only had about 10,000 acres of hemp that was grown for anything other than CBD. That means for fiber, to making the fabric, to making the building material, to making the food. Almost all of those uses of hemp are still bringing it in from Canada, from China, from India, eastern Europe, places like that. This is going to come down. Prices are going to come down. The availability is going to go up. It’s all going to happen over the next couple years is our prediction.

Matt Baum: 09:37 One of the things we’ve been talking about on the show with guests is that there is a very big CBD bubble right now. Like you said, everyone is growing hemp for CBD, literally everyone, because that is where the money is at the moment. But, again, that is going to change too. Unfortunately, you might have to dig around to find hemp fabrics right now, but they are out there. Like we said, we’ll put this in the show notes. You can check it out. As far as hemp milk goes, you had mentioned you had talked to your doctor and he kind of aargh because he wasn’t sure about the calcium. I took a couple years of nutrition when I was going through culinary school and it is an absolute fact that you get more calcium from plant-based milks like soy milk or almond milk or oat milk than you are from cow milk and that’s just because there’s lactose in it. If you’re not a baby, you are lactose intolerant to some degree. You’re going to get more calcium, as long as it’s in there. I haven’t seen the Trader Joe’s hemp milk, but I would think it’s pretty weird if there’s no calcium in there. Be one worth looking into though.

Kit O’Connell: 10:42 Of course, also with hemp milk, the hemp seed has a ton of great benefits apart from the calcium you gain all kinds of amino acids, Omega-3’s and 6’s and all these other beneficial nutritional substances that are in the hemp seed. It’s a real nutritional powerhouse. Even if it’s not your main source of calcium, it’s definitely … can be really good to make hemp milk. We’ve even got a video and some instructions on our site to make your own hemp milk with seeds, so check that out.

Matt Baum: 11:11 Again, all things are you’re not going to get from lactose-based animal milk.

Kit O’Connell: 11:17 Hey, if you do get this, drop us a note and tell us more about the artwork you are doing. That sounds really cool.

Matt Baum: 11:21 Yeah.

Kit O’Connell: 11:21 We’d love to learn more about what you’re doing.

Matt Baum: 11:22 Yeah, email that to us, we’d love to us. You can send that to-

Kit O’Connell: 11:25 Please.

Matt Baum: 11:25 Matt@ministryofhemp.com or info@ministryofhemp.com. All right. Let’s move to our next question here.

Understanding the dosage of CBD oil

Speaker 6: 11:32 Hey, so I was looking at some stuff online and I have some questions. I’m confused about CBD dosage on products. Some of the bottles say that they’re 1,000 milligrams or 500 milligrams or 250 milligrams. Is that the total amount in the bottle? Then it kind of goes hand-in-hand like why are some of them 25 milligrams? Is that just like a really low dose amount or is that the amount in the dropper? Appreciate some answers on this. Thank you very much for taking my call.

Matt Baum: 12:12 This is an excellent question. I’ll be honest, I get a little confused sometimes looking at these labels. Can you shed any light on this one, Kit?

Kit O’Connell: 12:20 It is confusing and it even throws us off a little bit. There’s one thing I want to say at the beginning here as sort of a preamble is that it’s just a good reminder and something that has come up recently to say that CBD is not currently regulated by the FDA. The FDA and the FTC will come down on the worst of the worst actors in the field. Those are the people that are claiming that CBD is going to cure cancer.

Matt Baum: 12:44 Right.

Kit O’Connell: 12:45 But as far as the other side of things, they’re not setting any standards. There’s no one looking at CBD and saying, “Every CBD bottle should be labeled like this.”

Matt Baum: 12:54 Right. Like you-

Kit O’Connell: 12:54 In the same way that there’s standards around buying vitamin C, we just don’t have that.

Matt Baum: 12:58 Yeah. It’ll say, “250 milligrams per pill” or whatever and you know exactly what you’re taking. Unfortunately-

Kit O’Connell: 13:03 And that’s just not the case for CBD, right now. Exactly. Yeah. When we look at products, because we review products here, the gold standard to us is that your label should say how much total is in the bottle. Some brands that are still very reputable brands have made the choice to instead list, like you said, the total amount in a dropper. If a full dropper is 25 milligrams, they’re going to put 25 milligrams on the bottle or if it’s a capsule, they’re listing how much is per capsule, which obviously makes a lot of sense to do it with capsules. The short answer is it varies from product to product and you need to read the label a little more carefully with CBD than you would with other products. For a tincture it should be the total amount on the bottle. Obviously, for things like a gummy or a capsule, it makes more sense to put a per dose list on there too. That’s what we think it should look like, but you are seeing stuff that’s all over the map. You see people that are just putting the per dropper. Occasionally, you’re seeing people that are listing a number that’s based on say the full amount of hemp oil in the bottle. It’s kind of an inflated number that doesn’t accurately reflect on what’s actually in the bottle.

Matt Baum: 14:25 Is that where we start seeing labels that say 5,000 milligrams and stuff like that?

Kit O’Connell: 14:31 We do see some of that. Yeah. We’re going to see some of those. Unfortunately, there are some people that, as far as we can tell, are just straight up scammers. If you search for CBD on Amazon, we’ve talked about this before, you’re going to see those ridiculous ones where they claim that there’s 25,000 milligrams in the bottle. On a more reasonable level, we did encounter a product recently. I won’t name names, but they had … theirs listed 3,000 on the bottle. When we took a closer look, we found that the actual amount of CBD was closer to about 2,250 say, 2,250 milligrams. The rest of it, they had made up by saying that there was hemp seed oil in there, so you’re still getting the hemp nutrition. We decided because they did provide a real honest breakdown on their website that they were a brand that we wanted to work with. Even with some of these good brands, it does require a little more research on your part. You need to go look at the brand information on the website, see what kind of breakdowns they’re offering. Even if a brand says that they have 500 in the bottle, unfortunately you still have to go look at their lab tests to find if they’re telling the truth about that. It’s really important to check those third-party lab tests.

Matt Baum: 15:46 Definitely.

Kit O’Connell: 15:47 A good product is going to be within 10% of what they say they are on their bottle or more exact, obviously, but you don’t want to go with anybody that’s any further off than that.

Matt Baum: 15:56 The TLDR version here and correct me if I’m wrong, but if we see a bottle with something that says 25 milligrams, typically that means it’s 25 milligrams per dropper. Anything above 100 is technically saying there is that much CBD in the bottle. If you get something that says 250 milligrams, that’s 250 milligrams per bottle.

Kit O’Connell: 16:21 That’s a good rule to follow in general at least as a starting point as you’re looking into a product [crosstalk 00:16:28].

Matt Baum: 16:27 Okay. All right. Yeah, because honestly I had a friend of mine who has been having some knee and hip trouble. I gave him CBD that someone had sent me and he really liked it. Then, I gave him another one that somebody else had sent me and he’s like, “Well, this one only says 25.” I said, “Well, I think means it’s per, you know, dropper, but I don’t really know.” I knew they were very reputable and he ended up really liking it, so good to know I wasn’t lying to him.

Kit O’Connell: 16:58 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Thanks to LifePatent

Matt Baum: 16:59 Before we move along, I am super excited to introduce you to our first sponsor for the Ministry of Hemp podcast, LifePatent. With a full line of high-quality and responsibly-sourced CBD products, LifePatent offers relief from pain, anxiety and even some help getting to sleep. It even offers CBD tincture for dogs and personally I have a pug with a nerve issue that was causing pain and she was shaking like crazy. I found giving her a CBD tincture with her meals has helped her stop shaking and reduced her pain quite a bit. The LifePatent site is currently offering free samples of their new LPX Technology, which harnesses a natural delivery system. The most effective delivery method available for the ingestion of cannabinoids on the market. You get to try two, 15 milligram sleep capsules on LifePatent and enjoy the power and efficacy of nature’s delivery system at lifepatent.com.

Matt Baum: 18:00 Also, check out a glowing review of LifePatent’s CBD/A oil over at ministryofhealth.com and you’ll learn more about the antiinflammatory and nausea-reducing properties of CBD/A. LifePatent cares deeply about their customers, because when it comes down to it, they understand their customers are people seeking relief. Like I said, you can learn more about their entire line of CBD products at lifepatent.com and, of course, we will have links to their site in the show notes. Huge thanks to lifepatent.com for sponsoring the Ministry of Hemp podcast.

Vitamin E & CBD vaping safety

Matt Baum: 18:41 Okay. Next question, here we go.

Speaker 7: 18:43 Hey, yeah, I had a question for you. It’s kind of been bouncing around my head a little bit. I’ve been hearing a lot about flavored vape pens that can cause serious injuries and sometimes death with people that have been using them. With all this CBD stuff going around out there now, I was wondering has there been any similar reports with CBD and stuff like that? Yeah, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you.

Matt Baum: 19:06 This is a really good one and I think this has been on a lot of people’s minds. We talked about it briefly on the show a little while back when they were still investigating what the ingredient was that was causing problems. As I understand it, all of the deaths were related to cannabis, like full-on, marijuana-related products, is that correct?

Kit O’Connell: 19:30 Yeah. Specifically, it seems like it was an issue with an additive that … It was vitamin E acetate.

Matt Baum: 19:39 Right.

Kit O’Connell: 19:39 Vitamin E is something that gets added as a preservative and I don’t want people like … Because you will see the edible products like the tinctures with vitamin E in them and you shouldn’t panic. That’s a very safe ingredient in something that goes on your skin or that you eat. But as far as inhaling, it seems like vitamin E is really bad news. That seems to be, again, as we often say, “We’re not doctors and we’re definitely not medical researchers.” It seems like the current consensus is that all of the issues seem to have been this additive called vitamin E acetate. I remember reading some research that also maybe pointed at this terpene-based additive that some of the black market brands were also adding to make their stuff go further. That’s also kind of with the vitamin E acetate is these black market cannabis or marijuana vape brand makers found out that they could keep having a thick looking extract inside of that capsule, inside of that cartridge, but have to put less of the actual THC extract in it by spacing it out with these terpenes or with the vitamin E.

Kit O’Connell: 20:59 Bottom line, don’t buy illegal vape cartridges. That’s unfortunate because I know that there’s a lot of people out there that are still stuck in black market states and it looks real tempting, but just don’t do it. It’s just not worth it unfortunately. Stick to the legal stuff, especially when it comes to vapes. It does seem like you’re relatively safe if you’re going to a legal dispensary and buying a vape there or buying these CBD vapes. As far as it looks like, there were not any issues with CBD. We’re still waiting to see if there’s any more research to come out before we’re personally picking up on the vape reviews again at Ministry of Hemp. I think we’re heading in that direction. It does look like it really … almost all or all was this vitamin E.

Matt Baum: 21:48 I did a, not a deep dive on this one, but I couldn’t find any reports about CBD vaping being involved even in the sicknesses, let alone the deaths. Again, not doctors here, but you’re probably okay as long as you’re buying your vape product from a reputable company.

Kit O’Connell: 22:10 Just like with CBD, I think, especially with if you’re going to be vaping it, you should make sure you know every ingredient that’s in that cartridge that you’re buying from a reputable company-

Matt Baum: 22:20 Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 22:20 … and that they’re a company that has really comprehensive third-party lab tests. There have been issues in the cannabis field where even outside of vaping where people got sick from inhaling moldy marijuana flower. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened in hemp yet, but it is potentially a risk because mold is mold and it’s bad for you no matter where it pops up, so it doesn’t-

Matt Baum: 22:43 Right. Whether you’re eating it or inhaling it.

Kit O’Connell: 22:46 Exactly. Especially with vapes, look for the brands that are offering these comprehensive third-party tests where they show not just the CBD content, but also that they’ve been checked for mold and pesticide residues.

Getting involved in hemp plastics

Matt Baum: 23:00 Okay. Last question here. It’s a longer one.

Speaker 8: 23:06 Hi, this is Rico, from Southern California. I recently discovered the possible impacts that hemp may have on our society and culture as a whole. Obviously, it’s come a long way in the size as far as external use products, topical products and obviously oral products. I am interested in getting into the field as soon as possible. I’m apparently making plans to get myself involved. I wasn’t thinking so much on the food or dietary supplement side of things, what I was thinking was more like in the industrial product or production of industrial use products made from hemp. What was I thinking, to be more specific, was plastics. My question is where do you see the process or how soon do you see something on the horizon in terms of processing plastics for the industry because as far as I’ve read up on this topic, decortication is heavily outdated. Because of all the years of being outlawed, so to speak, there’s been real no new manufacturing techniques or methods developed over the last 70 years or so, ever since the Marihuana Tax Act.

Speaker 8: 24:47 My question is, like I said, how soon do we see some major processing revolutions taking place for industrial goods, like plastics in particular. Thank you. My name is Rico. I’m from Southern California. I’ll be listening. Bye-bye.

Matt Baum: 25:04 Thanks for your call, Rico. That is a fantastic question. The short answer is the sooner guys like you get involved, the sooner we will see more, but I think there’s a longer answer here too.

Kit O’Connell: 25:18 Yeah. It’s really good, Rico, that you pointed out the effect of the prohibition, because we lost decades of development in every aspect of the cannabis plant.

Matt Baum: 25:28 Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 25:29 There’s so much more we could be doing with it right now if we hadn’t had this huge gap. That affects everything from the farmer planting the seeds in this field, all the way up to the guy trying to make the hemp plastic and everybody in between. The people processing and decorticating and drying and all the other processes, all those steps would be much advanced and more convenient and more efficient if we had the years of research. As far as the state of plastic right now, there is some hemp plastic out there in use. Now, of course, car manufacturers are pretty cagey about exactly what they do and how they make their cars, but we do understand that if there is some composite use of hemp in things like doorframes and some other very durable parts of vehicles are actually, in certain cases, using hemp. It’s usually mixed with other materials, but it is basically a hemp plastic. Beyond that, what we’re seeing is there’s these … They’re kind of crude, these hemp composite plastics and you can look at that them and tell that it was something made from a plant. It’s got little bits of plant in it. It’s not a clear plastic bottle. We just can’t do that yet.

Matt Baum: 26:35 Right. I remember seeing like a-

Kit O’Connell: 26:36 Not just the hemp-

Matt Baum: 26:36 … surfboard and stuff that we saw at NOCO that was completely-

Kit O’Connell: 26:39 Yeah, exactly.

Matt Baum: 26:41 … made of hemp. It was kind of fibrous if you looked really close.

Kit O’Connell: 26:46 You saw too, of course, there’s those people, PF Design Labs and they’re printing these very advanced composites. They had a bicycle frame that was made from hemp and it just looked like any other bike frame.

Matt Baum: 26:58 Yeah, it was amazing.

Kit O’Connell: 26:58 It was real light. It was real light.

Matt Baum: 27:00 Like virtually weightless, it was incredible.

Kit O’Connell: 27:02 Yeah, it was amazing. But that’s obviously super experimental. We’re seeing these great advanced, really cool experimental stuff. As far as practical use, there is this great company that we love called Sana Packaging, S-A-N-A, and they’re taking hemp plastic and they’re making products for the marijuana, for the cannabis industry where they’re taking … If you’re buying a doob tube or whatever, you can have it made out of a recycled hemp plastic. Even in some experimentation with taking the hemp waste from CBD production and turning that into plastic or paper, which is really cool.

Matt Baum: 27:37 See, that’s very cool. That is amazing.

Kit O’Connell: 27:39 I love that idea.

Matt Baum: 27:40 Yeah.

Kit O’Connell: 27:41 Yeah. That’s like where the future is to us is closing the circle so that the waste products of the hemp industry get made back into the packaging for the hemp industry-

Matt Baum: 27:51 Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 27:51 That’s super cool to us. Beyond that, someone’s just going to have to see the potential, get people involved who can throw money at it and do the research because that’s what we need to get to having really good, modern plastics made from hemp.

Matt Baum: 28:06 Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 28:07 Now, of course, we do have to say too that just as us being lovers of the planet here that there’s a lot of potential in hemp plastic. It is more biodegradable than conventional plastic depending on how you make it. Not all hemp plastic is automatically biodegradable, that’s a myth. It really depends on the type. Beyond that, we still, as a whole, have to be more responsible as a species about plastic-

Matt Baum: 28:31 Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 28:32 … no matter what we make it out of.

Matt Baum: 28:32 Absolutely.

Kit O’Connell: 28:33 We’ve got to be better about it. But, with what said, Rico, I hope you get involved with this because there’s so much potential for hemp plastic. It’s kind of a catch-22 in that we need the money to put in it and we don’t have anything to show for that yet, so how do we get the money? We just got to have some people that are willing to see that potential there and invest in it and put their time and their blood, sweat and tears into really making a progress in this. We have people out there doing it, but there’s a lot of room for growth, so I hope you’ll get involved in some way.

Matt Baum: 29:03 This is one of those things where I don’t shop at Walmart and I don’t agree with all their politics, but they were one of the first companies to start massively buying plastics that had been recycled for their vegetables and whatnot like that. It’s going to take someone like that, a giant, that is willing to put their foot in the market and say, “Okay, we want to look at hemp plastic because it’s not going to use petroleum like regular plastics. It will degrade faster. But just like with CBD where we keep saying, “This needs to be done organically, it needs to be done the right way” plastic has to be done the same way. It has to be able to biodegrade. We can’t just come up with another product that we’re throwing in landfills. Otherwise, what is the point?

Kit O’Connell: 29:48 Exactly.

Matt Baum: 29:48 It is going to take some titan of industry out there to say, “Let’s go for it and give it a try” and throw a bunch of money at it, unfortunately.

Kit O’Connell: 29:56 There’s an article that unfortunately it goes viral every few months. It’s this headline saying that LEGO is switching to hemp plastic and they’re not unfortunately. The article has this headline that’s very definitive that LEGO is doing this, but if you actually open the article, it just says that LEGO is considering switching to a vegetable plastic. The article makes the argument that hemp would be a good choice, which it would be. They’re not doing it yet, but that is another great example. If someone like LEGO said, “We’re going ahead and doing … and putting the money into learning what it would take to make the switch to hemp plastic.” If someone like them did that or-

Matt Baum: 30:34 Oh, yeah.

Kit O’Connell: 30:34 … a Hasbro or somebody huge like that, that would make a huge-

Matt Baum: 30:37 Or a DuPont [crosstalk 00:30:39] or somebody. I mean, like-

Kit O’Connell: 30:40 Oh, yeah. Somebody like that. Yeah.

Matt Baum: 30:41 That would be massive, but for right now-

Kit O’Connell: 30:44 And it is this weird place because I’m not a big fan of Walmart either. These big corporations are problematic, but at the same time some of them are starting to see the way the wind is blowing. Even fossil fuel companies are investing in renewable energy. Hopefully, we’ll see one of these big plastic manufacturers realize, hey, not only are we destroying earth, but we’re going to go out of business if we don’t change.

Matt Baum: 31:05 Right.

Kit O’Connell: 31:05 We need to start looking into this now. Hopefully, we’ll start to see them realize that and to make the choice to investigate hemp.

Matt Baum: 31:11 The thing we can do on our end is start demanding stuff like this. That’s one thing you can do as a consumer. Start demanding it and when you do see it, buy it, throw your money at it and let them know I’m interested in this, I like what you’re doing and the more we do that, the more these larger companies will see there’s money here. I’m not fooling myself that they’re going to wake up and go, “What we have done to this planet?” That’s not going to happen anytime soon. But, if we can show them we as a consumer are genuinely interested in this, then we can make a change and we can interest them in making a responsible change, even if it is just to make a bunch more cash.

Kit O’Connell: 31:49 I think one other thing to add too is that it’s important with these sorts of topics to look at transitional steps. We see this with hemp fabric too where it’s really expensive right now to make a 100% hemp shirt.

Matt Baum: 31:59 Right.

Kit O’Connell: 32:00 But you can still make a shirt that’s 50% hemp and 50% cotton and you still have a healthier shirt that’s more sustainable for the earth. You’re taking that step. I think we probably are going to see some intermediate steps where we see, for example, plastic bottles that are 40% hemp and 60% fossil fuel. Let’s not turn up our nose at those intermediate steps because they will hopefully get us where we need to be.

Matt Baum: 32:22 Yeah. That’s a really good point. We have to be cheerleaders right now and if we start screaming everything down because they are not doing it the sacred way, then we’re not going to make any headway unfortunately. We got to keep our eyes on the prize. You know what I mean?

Kit O’Connell: 32:36 Definitely.

Hemp questions: Final thoughts with Matt and Kit

Matt Baum: 32:36 Kit, thank you so much for joining me and answering these questions. This was a great group of questions we got this time.

Kit O’Connell: 32:43 Great variety. Yeah. Thanks for calling everybody.

Matt Baum: 32:46 Yeah, definitely. I can’t wait to do this again. We will definitely, maybe in the next month or so, we’ll get together, answer some more of your questions. Sound good?

Kit O’Connell: 32:54 Sounds great. Anytime.

Matt Baum: 32:55 Awesome. Kit, thanks again for joining us. Huge thank you to everybody that called in today and if you have hemp-related questions, just like I said at the beginning of the show, you can always call us at 402-819-6417 and you can leave a message with your hemp-related question. Now, do me a favor, don’t leave your personal information because we don’t want to broadcast that to the whole world, but feel free to followup with an email to me, Matt@ministryofhemp.com, if you’d like me to follow up on your question or let you know when it’s going to be played.

Matt Baum: 33:46 Once again, I want to thank Kit for coming on the show and helping me out. He does an amazing job over at ministryofhemp.com where you can find all the latest hemp and CBD news stories and reviews and a fantastic list of quality companies that you should be buying CBD from, including LifePatent, our first sponsor. Thank you much guys. It’s great to have you on board.

Matt Baum: 34:11 Recently we’ve been talking a lot about hemp in the industrial world on the show and next episode we’re going to do just that, so tune in to hear more about the future as hemp as an industrial commodity. As always, you can find a full written transcript of this show in the show notes to make it a little more accessible for everybody. If you like what you hear in this show, then please do us a huge favor, go to iTunes and leave us a star rating. It really, really helps to put this information in front of people better looking for it. Hey, if you hate the show, let me know that too. Shoot me an email to Matt@ministryofhemp.com and tell me what you would like to hear, what you think we’re doing wrong and what you think we could do better. I would love to hear your thoughts. That is it for today’s show and for now this is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp telling you to take care of yourself and take care of others and make good decisions, will you? This is the Ministry of Hemp podcast, signing off.

The post Even More Hemp Questions Answered With Matt & Kit appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

Fuel is everything. America would not be the hyper-efficient economy it is today without something to power our cars, computers, and our Roomba vacuum cleaners. We would be nothing but Neolithic farmers without our electricity and gasoline.

But, anything that is truly valuable always comes at a price. Traditional fuel sources hurt the environment, and they’re running out. Air pollution from processing fossil fuels harms the troposphere, and indirectly depletes ozone from our atmosphere. The price for hyper efficiency is evident, which is why alternative fuel sources are becoming so important. Today we focus on a fuel source that hits close to home. That alternative is hemp biofuel.

The cannabis plant is the gift that keeps on givin’. This magic plant gives us CBD oil, THC, hemp fibers and even fuel! Researchers have made hemp into two types of biofuel: biodiesel and ethanol.

Hemp biodiesel

Biodiesel is produced by the pressing of hemp seeds to extract their oils & fats.

After the extraction, the product is then put through more steps to make it into a usable hemp biofuel for your car. If you’re curious to learn about the specifics of biodiesel production, the process is thoroughly explained by hemp.com.

The argument for hemp-derived biodiesel comes down to convenience. If processed correctly, biodiesel can be put into any diesel-powered automobiles. It can be stored and transported like diesel, so there isn’t a need to create a new system for transportation. It even replaces the smell of traditional diesel with the smell of hemp.

Using hemp to make ethanol

Ethanol is traditionally made from wheat-based crops such as corn and barley. It’s traditionally used as an additive to gasoline, which gave way to our “flex-fuel” vehicles of today.

Hemp can be made into ethanol by various forms of fermentation. Using hemp as the main source of ethanol, instead of food crops like wheat & corn has clear advantages. Not using food crops as a fuel source allows more efficiency in food production, and hemp can be grown in lower quality conditions unlike corn or wheat. Hemp-derived ethanol also shares the advantages of transportation and usability as biodiesel.

Hemp biofuel: A more sustainable alternative?

Fuel alternatives like this can seem like a no-brainer to replace our traditional fossil-fuel sources, but there are drawbacks to these alternative techniques.

To set up a large-scale industrial hemp farm, you will experience the same ethical dilemmas that the farming industry faces. Deforestation and pesticide use will increase, and we’ll inevitably replace some of our food-crop land with more hemp-crop land. Farmers can grow hemp biofuel on land that is not fit for other crops. This “marginal land” is essentially land that isn’t tilled and cleared out for farming.

Despite the versatility, hemp produces a much bigger harvest in ideal farming settings. Additionally, marginal land is actually home to important plants, trees, and living creatures that are vital to the ecosystem. Read “Is Hemp The Best Biofuel?” from sensiseeds.com for a more in-depth look into the argument for hemp biofuel.

Clearly, hemp biofuel alone won’t solve our environmental crisis, but we believe it could be part of a transition to a cleaner way of living.

The auto industry already uses hemp

While hemp biofuel may not be a popular alternative just yet, the automotive industry already uses hemp.

Automakers weave hemp plastic into a bendable material similar to fiberglass. Almost all European car makers use hemp fibers as interior door panels and trim pieces. And companies like FlexForm technologies operate as a dedicated producer of hemp-fiberglass that they sell to automotive companies to be made into car doors and exterior panels.

Cars that feature hemp-based materials include the BMW i8 supercar and the Lotus Evora. The advantages that come with hemp-made materials is that they are lighter, bio-degradable, and comes from a much easier renewable resource. Hemp grows in roughly 3 months while metals take thousands of years to form.

The future of hemp fuel

Now that hemp is legal in the U.S., we’re witnessing the beginning of  hemp revolution. We hope that means more hemp material available for experimental uses like fuel, in the not too distant future.

While hemp biofuel can’t solve the entire energy crisis (we believe the answer to that problem will require multiple solutions), it can provide us with a great renewable fuel source in addition to its already useful applications.

While we spent our time here discussing hemp biofuel, let’s not forget the other ways people have been using hemp. There’s hemp beer, hemp paper, and, this reporter’s personal favorite, hemp food! The future is indeed green.

Article updated October 2019.

The post Hemp Biofuel Could Ease Our Dependence On Fossil Fuels appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

A pioneering hemp company is helping to reduce cannabis waste and clean up our oceans.

Update December 16, 2020: Sana Packaging founders visited the Ministry of Hemp podcast to discuss how they started their hemp plastic packaging company, after forming Ron Vasak-Smith, CEO, and James Eichner

The cannabis industry produces massive amounts of single-use plastic. The packaging regulations instituted in many legal cannabis states make single-use plastic almost mandatory.

Sana Packaging is helping to change this pollution problem. In our new video, hemp advocate Cait Curley talks with Ron Basak-Smith, CEO of Sana Packaging. Basak-Smith explains how Sana started, and how they are pioneering innovative hemp and ocean plastic solutions for the cannabis industry.

Thanks to Cait Curley for filming this interview for Ministry of Hemp!

More about cannabis waste & hemp plastic

We previously interviewed Sana Packaging last year:

Here are some other articles about the immense potential of hemp plastic and hemp sustainability:

• Hemp Will Change The World
• Recycling Hemp & Cannabis Bio-Waste
• Why Isn’t Hemp Plastic Everywhere?

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Hemp packaging could be a solution to the problem of disposable, single-use paper and plastic.

Update December 16, 2020: Sana Packaging founders visited the Ministry of Hemp podcast to discuss how they started their hemp plastic packaging company, after forming Ron Vasak-Smith, CEO, and James Eichner

Hemp packaging could replace disposable, single-use plastic

“The statistics are in: every second … a half acre of trees are cut down,” said Matthew Glyer of Hemp.Press. “7.5 bllion trees for paper alone is not sustainable.”

Every industry is struggling with the growing problem of waste. The legal cannabis industry is no exception. Most medical and recreational dispensaries use single-use plastic and foil containers. Consumers throw them away after consuming the products inside. For the most part, these materials are not biodegradable. Single-use paper packaging is also commonplace in the industry.

Researches haven’t perfected hemp plastic, yet. Meanwhile, companies like Sana Packaging are already creating composites from hemp and corn. Sana Packaging’s products combine hemp hurd, the fibrous woody core of agricultural hemp, with corn to create composite bioplastic.

Working with domestically-sourced materials also ensures the sustainability of their products. Sana Packaging sources all their hemp domestically, from Kentucky, then processes it in North Dakota.

“We manufacture in Minnesota and Arizona,” said Ron Basak-Smith of Sana Packaging. “All American made, all American supply chain.”

Hemp.Press also targets the cannabis industry with products that replace boxes or display cards made from trees with hemp paper.

Both companies want to change the laws, too. Currently, most states with legal medical or recreational marijuana programs prohibit the re-use of packaging at cannabis dispensaries. Ideally, consumers would use refillable packaging that they could bring to the dispensary over and over.

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