Why should anyone bother about hemp-based garbage bags?

Two reasons (both perhaps already quite well known to you):

  1. We are using too many garbage bags. 
  2. Every garbage bag that is made from plastic, will stick around in some form, for anything between 10 and 20 years. 

Let’s dig a bit deeper. Here’s a hemp garbage bag:

hemp garbage bags

Yes, this bag was made from hemp.

Source: Murth.com

There’s visually and functionally no difference between a hemp garbage bag and a plastic one. 

The average person uses 25 garbage bags per 30 days, according to a study by leading analytics firm, Statista. 

That’s hundreds of garbage bags per household per year. Now times that by the number of households on your street, times the number of streets, and you start to see a problem.

use of indoor garbage bags

Source: Statista

Of course, there is a reason why plastic bags are so commonplace. They are cheap, durable, and versatile. That’s a really, really tough combination to beat. 

So, as much as we want the world to change, the truth is that nobody will give up the convenience of the plastic garbage bag.  

Enter stage left, hemp garbage bags. 

A hemp garbage bag can solve all the problems of regular plastic garbage bags, and even have some benefits for the environment.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the main problems of plastic garbage bags, the benefits of hemp garbage bags, and how hemp is competitive in price. 

So, let’s get right into it.

Why are regular plastic bags so lethal?

Well, we can boil the evil of plastic bags down to two things: they don’t decompose and are impossible to recycle. 

There are, of course, other reasons why nobody is a huge fan of the plastic garbage bag. 

For instance, they are a choking hazard for animals and fish, they end up in water bodies, clogging them, and can harbor all sorts of pests and microbes.

But let’s explore the two main problems that we told you about.

1. We Cannot Recycle Regular Plastic Garbage Bags

A single household-grade garbage bag can be anywhere from 0.7 to 4.0 mils thick. 

Heaver, contractor-grade bags start at the 3.0 mil-thickness mark. But, problem: we can’t recycle garbage bags. Especially the regular household ones — they’re too thin for us to industrialize their recycling. 

We have the same problem with plastic bottles. If you leave that thin ring of plastic around the plastic bottle neck, the whole bottle cannot be recycled. But that’s a discussion for another day (yes, hemp plastic can solve that too).

And the second factor preventing regular plastic recycling is contamination. Garbage bags often contain food scraps, liquids, or hazardous materials. This makes them impossible to recycle. And even when they are recycled, plastic bags follow a process called “downcycling”. 

As in, any product made from plastic bags will be of such a low quality that it won’t be recyclable again. 

2. Regular Plastic Bags Do Not Decompose

No form of plastic decomposes naturally.

The plastic you use today will probably outlive ten generations of your family. If we’re lucky, that plastic will live out the next few centuries in a landfill. More likely though, it’ll be in a river by the end of the year.

So, to begin with, the primary compound used to make garbage bags is polyethylene (often shortened to “PE”). It’s a by-product you get when you refine petrol. Now, PE has a whole host of bad things that come with it.

You can read about the problems PE causes in this report, published by the Nature, Environment, & Pollution Technology (NEPT) Council.

The plastic industry will try to confuse you by saying there are different types of PR, such as LDPE, HDPE, LLDPE, and so on. 

However, the be-all, end-all is that PE is bad, in any form. And we simply cannot live without the things made from it. 

But we CAN make the same things, without using PE at all. 

That’s where hemp comes in, and that’s why we’re telling you about hemp garbage bags.

In our next section, we’ll tell you how hemp garbage bags can benefit you.

Why are hemp garbage bags the perfect solution?

Hemp garbage bags have all the functions of plastic bags but with lots of advantages for the environment.

Here are the benefits of hemp garbage bags:

1. Biodegradability: Hemp Garbage Bags Are 100% Biodegradable

Regular plastic bags, as we said, are made from polymers, most popularly, from PE. PE takes several hundred years to break down and decompose. 

We can, admittedly, speed up the biodegradation of plastic, but that requires adding harmful chemicals to the plastic. Hemp garbage bags decompose completely organically. 

Hemp garbage bags made from hemp plastic can decompose in about six months. 

Let’s also not forget that hemp plastic is an organic (made naturally) product, it leaves no harmful traces. You see, hemp plastics are not made of polymers, they are primarily made of cellulose. 

So, long story short: say you throw a couple of hemp garbage bags and plastic garbage bags into a landfill. 

Come back one year later, and the hemp garbage bags will have returned to the earth.

2. Durability: Hemp Garbage Bags Are As Durable As Plastic Ones

Durability is a critical factor for garbage bags. 

They must be able to hold sharp objects, liquids (sometimes), and various waste materials. 

Now, here’s a great thing about hemp fibers – they’re stronger than plastic when woven together properly. Think about it: hemp has been used to make ropes and ship sails for centuries because of its incredible strength. 

The same strength carries over to garbage bags. 

They can hold sharp items, contain liquids, and even withstand higher temperatures than their plastic counterparts.

3. Versatility: You Can Use Hemp Plastic To Make Anything That You Make From Regular Plastic

Hemp plastic is incredibly versatile. Whatever you can make with regular plastic, you can make with hemp plastic. 

From water bottles to food containers to car parts – hemp plastic can do it all. The real game-changer is that it can be molded and shaped just like regular plastic but without all the environmental downsides. 

And so it is with hemp garbage bags. 

The manufacturing process is remarkably similar, even when it comes to cost. 

4. Eco-Friendliness: Hemp Garbage Bags Are Good For The Planet

The last major benefit is that hemp is basically a superhero plant for the environment. 

Hemp grows super fast (120 days to go from seed to harvest), needs very little water, and improves the soil it grows in by putting nutrients back. 

Plus, one acre of hemp can absorb about 15 tons of CO2 – this is why it’s used in “carbon sequestering” projects. 

Unlike trees that take decades to grow, hemp is ready for harvest in just a few months. 

If you’d like to know more about the environmental benefits of the hemp plant, you can read this research paper by a leading Indian university.

And those were the major benefits that hemp garbage bags have over plastic ones. But surely, you must be wondering how we turn a living plant into plastic. That’s what we’ll talk about in our last section.

How hemp plants are turned into plastic bags

The process of making hemp plastic bags is, broadly, a five-step process.

Step One: Get the Raw Hemp

The first order of business would be to acquire quantities of raw hemp. The best part is that hemp plastic production can use hemp biomass that other industries would consider waste. “Biomass” is just the technical word for the raw material. 

Step Two: Extract the Cellulose

Next, the cellulose (the key ingredient for plastic) is extracted from the hemp. This is done with minimal or no chemicals, focusing on getting as much pure cellulose as possible. Without going into unnecessary detail, there are three main ways of cellulose extraction. These are mechanical separation, enzymatic extraction, and chemical pulping.

Step Three: Clean Up The Cellulose

The next step in the hemp plastic process is to purify the cellulose. This is done by running it through a series of chemical baths. This prevents the cellulose from crystallisation, which happens if it’s left to stand too long. Now, it’s ready 

Step Four: Extrusion

Next, the cellulose will be heated and shaped into strings, bricks, or pellets. The most common way this shaping is done is through a process called “extrusion”. You heat up the cellulose, and force it through several small holes, making strings. You can further cut these strings into pellets, and then package and sell them.

Step Five: Cooling and Finishing

Finally, the plastic is molded into its final form, cooled, and prepared for shipping to manufacturers or other users.

And that’s it. You’ve now got hemp plastic pellets, and you can use these pellets to make anything plastic. 

In this example, you’d use them to make compostable garbage bags from hemp. Or, you could go over to our website, Murth.org, and pick up readymade biodegradable hemp products there. 

And yes, we do make hemp garbage bags. 

Starting from just INR 20 (0.25 USD) per set.

One last thing — you can make different types of hemp plastic for different needs. Here an overview of the four main kinds:

types of hemp plastic

Source

But to describe them would warrant a whole other article, which is a topic for another day.

For decades, plastic garbage bags have dominated due to their affordability and practicality—but at an immense cost to the environment. 

But now, we can change that. 

We don’t have to give up plastic, which, like it or not, is the lifeblood of our modern world. We simply use hemp-based plastic alternatives. We use these to make biodegradable hemp plastic items.

And just like that, the problem disappears.

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