“Most people who go there have already discovered it’s made of hemp,” hemp advocate Dick Clarke told the Ministry of Hemp. “But they are surprised to see how normal it looks — what were they expecting I wonder?”

Continued Clarke:

“(They’re) equally surprised at how nice it feels inside, and how comfortable it is. This is when the lightbulbs go on about temperature and internal humidity control. It’s fun to watch. Then when they start talking, excitedly, they are blown away by the quiet acoustics.”

‘The most comfortable home I have ever slept in’

Clarke from Sydney-based firm Envirotecture won the Paul Dass Memorial Prize in the BDA National Design Awards, for outstanding building design for the house near Mudgee, northwest of Sydney.

He has been building hemp homes since 2013. AK Constructions Mudgee built the award-winning house, with a design by Envirotecture, and the hemp building materials supplied by Australian Hemp Masonry Company (AHMC).

“Having visited the house in a cold winter time, I can say that it is the most comfortable home I have ever slept in,” said Clarke.

“While there was frost on the ground outside, we slept under a light blanket, with no additional heating. The house has a sense of settled quietness which is hard to understand without experiencing it.”

The hemp home cost about $700,000. Thats about 15% more than a normal timber and fibre cement building. Clarke told us they’ve struggled to get Australia’s construction code to acknowledge the unique benefits of hempcrete and the Grattai house.

It’s not the only award-winning hemp home in Australia. In 2017 “Balanced Earth” in Byron Bay, a trendy spot on the country’s east coast, won the New South Wales Master Builders Award for Energy Efficient Housing.

AHMC have been developing the Australian hemp construction industry since 1999 and supply Building Code of Australia (BCA) compliant green building products, consulting services and also give training and advice.

AHMC manufacture lime binder, hemp-lime render, and insulation products in Sydney. Their materials are low-embodied energy, thermally efficient and greatly reduce energy use in buildings. They developed and tested them over six years at the Australian Centre for Construction Innovation at the University of New South Wales, and then for a further six years in the field.

Hempcrete homes built regularly in Australia

Klara Marosszeky, AHMC managing director, said they had built 140 hemp homes. With multiple occupants living in them there could be a total 400 people residing in a hemp house thanks to AHMC.

AHMC builds houses on a regular basis in Tasmania, Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria. They were about to start on homes in Queensland and South Australia, as well as New Zealand. There are currently nine builds underway, mostly in New South Wales but also in Victoria and Western Australia. This was despite the misconception, she said, that Australia didn’t have its own hempcrete building products.

“We’ve had feedback from people from homes in Mudgee for example where it’s been 40 plus degrees for over a week and it doesn’t get hotter than 27 inside a hemp home,” Marosszeky told the Ministry of Hemp.

“So (hempcrete) works thermally in a whole range of ways. 

She continues “It’s light thermal mass, it’s highly insulative and because it’s a breathable material (it’s) vapor permeable, it draws moisture out of the atmosphere, so deals with humidity very well.”

In February, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, declared the 2018-19 summer the hottest on record. 

Meanwhile regional New South Wales is undergoing a record drought, which is where hemp — a drought-resilient hardy crop that can guarantee farmers income during these periods — also comes in.  

‘Miracle house’ made from hemp

The manager of a community radio network in Victoria also installed two unrendered hemp walls during the retrofit of his home. He discovered working there was the equivalent of working in a sound booth. He’s now building a hemp music studio, said Marosszeky. 

One award-winning house in the Sydney, built under the city’s flight path also has both acoustic and thermally insulative benefits thanks to hemp.

The house has a sense of settled quietness which is hard to understand without experiencing it.

Dick Clarke, award-winning hempcrete architect

Others hemp homes in Australia include a family with teenage aged triplets with muscular dystrophy who require wheelchairs. Clarke designed their house in central-west New South Wales. Locals dubbed it a “miracle house.”

“What had to be designed was a home where three people in wheelchairs could get around without busting the house to pieces,” said Marosszeky.

“In a normal home that wouldn’t work so it’s sort of like a mini hospital size building. And the community built it.”

Australias first commercial hempcrete building

More recently AHMC carried out their first commercial build at the Innovation Centre at the Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School in Byron Bay in New South Wales. It’s Australia’s first commercial hemp building. AHMC consider construction of the new maths and science centre a major milestone for hempcrete in Australia. 

Marosszeky first began looking at hemp in the mid-1990s when she started searching or an alternative to timber, not to stop using it altogether, but to use it more carefully.

“We haven’t got our heads around forests and how much we need how much vegetation we need to keep going on the planet to be able to harvest the amount of emissions that are out there,” she said.

“Hemp just immediately goes into that and it has this history of durability.” 

Marosszeky continued: “It has the health benefits, so good indoor air quality, and then it hits these targets for thermal efficiency.”

Training others in Australia to build hempcrete homes 

Marosszeky has run workshops for years, teaching people to build hemp houses, providing formal and hands on training on building with hemp masonry or hemp lime construction materials for builders, building designers, architects and owner builders. 

This could be a pole structure, standard pine frame or construction which starts on stone in wet or tropical areas or cold regions. AHMC distributes training manuals which detail everything needed for a code compliant home.

In Australia, there is demand for hempcrete homes for health. 

“We know what is inside our buildings is making us sick,” said Marosszeky, adding that molds don’t grow in hemp buildings because they have breathable walls.

“A huge amount of buildings in Australia and everywhere in the world have got molds, molds are responsible for about 75% of allergies with respiratory and skin allergies.”

“She added: “so it’s quite an important thing to not have molds in your home because that’s what’s triggering all of your allergies.” 

AHMC also work closely with farmers and processors in Australia. They are currently setting up for early stage investment. 

The post Hempcrete In Australia: Hemp To The Rescue During Heat & Drought appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

After launching her hemp business with her husband, Maxine Woodhouse didn’t want to concentrate on products she felt were already being done, like oil and protein power.

So she chose something that would stand out – hemp beeswax food wraps.

Available in funky retro tie dyed colors, which makes them perfect for a dinner party, you might say they really are the bees’ knees of food wraps.

“We decided we wanted to have something different because we want our business to be a bit unique from everyone else, so we went ‘okay what if we dyed them and dipped them and we get our beeswax’,” Maxine Shea, co-founder of Australian-based business Hemp Collective and Fields of Hemp, told us.

LOCAL BEESWAX & HEMP COMBINE FOR SUSTAINABLE HEMP FOOD WRAPS

The locally made wraps, which can be purchased online, are all-natural, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, water-resistant and sustainable.

The beeswax is sourced locally and infused with organic coconut oil and pine tree resin from the Byron Bay community in northern NSW, not far from where Shea and her husband and business co-founder Mike have a hemp farm for industrial use.

“People go ‘oh is it farmed from bees that are being harmed’ and we went ‘well no the bee keepers look after their bees,’” Maxine said.

With a background that includes studying and teaching about waste education, the product also fits in with the ethos of the couple and their business.

“We came up with the hemp beeswax wrap because we’re trying to eliminate plastic within our business. I come from that zero waste (belief) and also moving forward I think it’s important to do that for society,” Maxine said.

“There’s so much going on with plastic at the moment that it is an unsustainable product and it is killing a lot of wildlife, so the beeswax wraps made sense.”

Perfect for storing food and keeping produce fresh – from vegetables and fruits to flowers to kids’ lunches – the list of uses for the wraps is endless, say the Hemp Collective.

The biodegradable wraps, which can be moulded into a pouch or cone (no pun intended) are also easy to use, are water-resistant, and are easy to wash.

FROM HEMP FOOD WRAPS TO HEMP PAPER: HEMP IS WHERE WE ARE

Following their launch, the Hemp Collective unveiled their hemp paper and hemp business cards.

“I couldn’t find any hemp business cards. I thought ‘no one’s actually making them in Australia’,” the entrepreneur said.

“We went ‘okay you know what we could actually do wedding invitations, we could do all sorts of things with it.’ But the business cards were what we started out with.”

The fact that it’s a premium product again sets it aside from the others that do exist, Maxine said.

The Hemp Collective’s soaps come in myrtle, activated charcoal, lavender oil, peppermint and eucalyptus, and oatmeal flavors. Ingredients include organic cold pressed coconut oil, purified water, Australian hemp seed oil, and organic unrefined shea butter.

“There’s probably seven ingredients in there and it’s all either organic or Australian,” Maxine said.

Next up they will launch their hemp shampoo and conditioner bar range. A healing balm is also in the pipeline.

The main concern for their products, Mike said, is that they are producing high quality.

“We made sure that we got not just any coconut oil, we made sure that it either came from a sustainable source but also good quality,” he says.

“The same with the shea butter.”

MAKING HEMP FANS IN AN AUSTRALIAN TOURISM HOT SPOT

The couple’s business is based in the small town of Mullumbimby, not far from the tourist hot spot Byron Bay, with a wall of hemp that the community helped make for their office.

“We said we’re going to build this hemp wall. Ten people (said) ‘oh we’ll come and help’,” Maxine said.

“We hand harvested that hemp. The community has been amazing around here.”

The couple, who have been together for 17 years, were based in New Zealand, where they had a distribution company, before they moved to Australia in 2017.

Maxine had earlier given birth to the couple’s son who was diagnosed with a severe form of eczema. Maxine was later diagnosed with a brain tumor, a type that affects only one to two per cent of people. In New Zealand, they were given some CBD oil.

“When we came over here, we did a whole change and we looked at hemp and went yeah, I think there’s something in this,” Mike said.

“And then the food law changed (in November 2017) and that’s when we thought ‘well this is what’s going to get the wheels moving for the hemp industry.’”

The couple say they have recurring customers and their main customers are probably mostly female, but their ages are different.

“The soap gets an older demographic whereas we feel like shampoo bars and conditioner bars are going to be good for that travellers 18 – 35 type age groups where they’re kind of on the move,” Maxine said.

“It’s perfect for travel, you just shove it in your bag. You don’t have to carry all these big bottles.”

“Artists are loving the paper.”

HOPES FOR HEMP’S FUTURE IN AUSTRALIA

Maxine said there’s also some exciting things happening “behind the scenes”.

“We really want to start getting some infrastructure happening around the region, farmers growing but growing so they’re actually going to get better yields and outputs and also money because farmers are always struggling,” she said.

She said the Australian hemp industry was “stifled due to a range of different things”.

“It’s stifled due to thought process the fact that there’s stigma around the products,” Maxine said.

“Australia is behind due to its crazy policies.”

Maxine said her vision for the hemp community in Australia was one where people could collaborate but every single person could still have a niche within their business that sets them, their story, and their product apart.

“If everyone can work together you’ve actually got a bigger way of talking to government and getting things changed,” she said.

The post Hemp Food Wraps: Sustainable Food Covering As A Substitute For Plastic appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

“I’ve got three on site at the moment that are made,” says Michael Balderstone president of the HEMP Embassy in Nimbin, a small town in northern New South Wales, where the caskets are designed, built, and sold.

“People ring up and order them. I can make one in a day. They’re beautiful.”

The coffins, which are built with a 19mm lightweight pressed hemp board from Germany and are lined with hemp rope handles, are usually colourfully painted by artists in Nimbin. The town, which hosted the 1973 Aquarius Festival, is Australia’s answer to Woodstock.

“It takes people all their life saving up for their funeral,” says Balderstone. “In Nimbin we want to wrap them in a cloth and compost them, but you’re not allowed so you’ve got to do the cheapest (thing) possible.”

The hemp coffins cost only between $700 and $900, he says. That’s similar to the cost of a regular coffin, but constructed from sustainable materials that will biodegrade more quickly.

“They are popular,” says Balderstone.

“Even my father, he was very conservative. Never got stoned but said, ‘I wouldn’t mind one of those hemp coffins.’”

“I’ve been encouraging people to buy them early, get in early.”

And they’re also versatile, as a sign in the window of the HEMP embassy highlights.

“Can be used as a broom cupboard or book shelves etc in the meantime,” it reads.

HEMP COFFINS ON THE RISE WORLDWIDE

According to small-scale manufacturer Rawganique, which makes hemp products, local demand for its willow-hemp caskets and coffins “is more than enough” for its single artisan workshop located on Denman Island, British Columbia. Their products feature organic hemp ropes, come in a variety of colors, are chemical and fertilizer-free, and completely biodegradable. Meanwhile, hemp burial shrouds are also available through Australia-based Life Rites.

The Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code has allowed the sale and consumption of low-THC hemp seed foods since November 2017. The move was described as a “landmark” by the not-for-profit Australian Industrial Hemp Alliance (AIHA).

The Nimbin HEMP Embassy, formed in 1992, aims to educate people about the integration of hemp in people’s lives. The Embassy runs a shop and information centre “to fund our protest” against Australia’s cannabis laws. Its shop displays everything from a hemp surfboard to a hemp bees-wax food wrap, while its hemp bar offers a range of hot beverages and desserts containing the plant. Other restaurants and shops nearby also sell hemp products.

Balderstone is also president of Australia’s federally-registered HEMP Party, which will contest in the upcoming election in May.

According to reports, Australia is one of highest users of psychoactive cannabis (“marijuana”) in the world, even though recreational use of cannabis is criminalized there. Medicinal marijuana is legal in the country.

The post Hemp Coffins: Elevating The Afterlife In Australia With Hemp appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.