'Why don't we make all our plastics from hemp' and other silly arguments

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It was with great pleasure I stumbled upon plastics engineer Miranda Marcus' blog in the UK Huffington Post this month titled 'Plastics aren't wrecking the environment - People are'.

The matter-of-fact reality check piece made some beautifully scientific counter arguments to the uninformed jabbing statements the mainstream media continues to make about plastics, with many outlets promoting Plastic Free July to their readers - which to any European should be, frankly, an absurd notion, and no amount of home-made yoghurt will convince me otherwise.

I am sure I am not alone in this but I regularly find myself wading into arguments I was never invited to join in the first place to state the case for plastics. Here are a few examples of the debates I feel compelled to throw my two cents into.

Why can't we make all our plastics out of hemp?

I come across this argument a lot - although you can substitute 'hemp' for a startlingly broad church of nouns (banana skins, grass clippings, avocado shells). 'Why can't we make all our plastics out of hemp?' cry the social media posts, showcasing packaging and clothing made using the wonder plant that will cleanse our world of dirty petroleum-based products.

Why can't we make all plastic products out of hemp? Because you could kiss goodbye to great swathes of the planet's biodiversity in order to farm enough to process it into a biofeedstock for plastics. Because the end product will not have the barrier properties or the correct flexibility and tensile strength for every packaging, electrical and automotive application - though it may for some. Because the plastics already used to package everything from paracetamol to life-saving blood for transfusions have been tested to the high standards medical grade polymers have to meet in order to be marketable. To test a bioplastic made of hemp feedstock for every single application would be incredibly expensive and in many cases entirely pointless.

Why can't all plastics be biodegradable?

I meet the same blinking obstinacy when I challenge those who seem hell bent on convincing me that all plastic products can be biodegradable, so why are evil brands not making their bottles and wrappers biodegradable?

Their intentions are always good, but we should be encouraging people to sort their used plastics responsibly and treat all polymers as a resource just like copper or glass, rather than sending it all to landfill where it'll apparently completely vanish and cease to be a problem. Out of sight, out of mind is a lazy and costly attitude to take. Every government in Europe is working to educate people to responsibly sort their waste, and schemes are being set up all the time to ensure no plastics are wasted post-consumption. Are we going to let millions of tonnes of plastics just melt into the landscape and lose all their valuable chemistry? The argument makes about as much financial sense as blasting all our difficult-to-recycle waste into space.

We used to live perfectly well without plastics

I gesture wildly around me with exasperation when anybody suggests that we go back to the good old days where we didn't have plastics at all. Yes, back to the days of lead sewerage systems, brass autos, knitted swimwear (my father often tells me about the woolly trunks of his 1950s childhood), no mobile phones and draughty wooden windowpanes.

What would a supermarket look like without plastics? There'd certainly be a lot less in it. The tinned food market would skyrocket because we wouldn't be able to store fresh food for as long without plastic packaging.

And what would your wardrobe look like? Your trainers would look very different and you’d feel the effects of that 10-mile run in your feet long before the rest of you began to ache. You could kiss goodbye to your ultra-light compression shirts and stretchy spinning leggings. Your fake leather jacket would vanish.

I understand I am preaching to the converted today, but I agree with Marcus 100 per cent when she says that thanks to polymer technology, our lives are more comfortable, longer and more connected.

"I am tired to death of people wanting to 'ban plastics' when really they just want to find a more environmentally responsible way of packaging and carrying goods, or alternatively, to encourage recycling of all materials (cardboard and metals clog landfills too)," she stated. "If you want to ban plastics it’s just a sign that you have no idea what they’re used for."

Hear hear!

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Comments (12)

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Plastic

Rose, yes plastic has made our lives better in so many ways but it's too bad that the negative impacts are showing to be major impacts and we're badly in need of cultivating both healthier alternatives and different ways to produce less waste.

Forest 6 days ago

Wait, so what is your argument for biodegradables?

because I couldn't spot you rebuttal, only that "The argument makes about as much financial sense as blasting all our difficult-to-recycle waste into space".
So your argument is that its more expensive? I mean, that seems like something that could change with greater adoption, could you elaborate?

Daniel Renehan 9 days ago

The magazine for Europe's plastic producers fear change?

Colour me surprised! Tell me more about how non-renewable based plastics are the only way!

Kevin 25 days ago

Not silly enough - Hemp

This writer did not do as compelling of a job as I would have hoped to make the argument against the use of hemp in plastics to call it 'silly'. So just because it wouldn't immediately replace every plastic, then it should be considered worthless? The fact is, not everyone in the world is going to recycle, no matter the logic of the efforts. If we can reduce the amount of long-term pollution that winds up in our oceans, that will improve the situation.

Ben S 30 days ago

Hemp as a plastic

Aside from the myriad of reasons why hemp is considerably more beneficial to the natural environment of the Earth, and to our health as humans, it grows considerably faster and more bountiful than traditional crops, while improving the soils fertility for further sustainability. Not only does it not require any harmful pesticides for most bugs and insects, it turns into a hardy and durable plastic more impact resistant than steel while at the same time being biodegradable within a reasonable amount of time and easily recyclable. The uses of the plant for sustainable food and fuel are yet another amazing facet of this green gift from Gob. The world will be a much better place once its uses are explored and utilized to their fullest potentials.

Kali Sam 80 days ago

Henry Ford Hemp Car

I completely agree. takes around 120 days for a plant to mature which is WAYYY faster than hundreds of years that it takes for the trees we cut down so readily for paper products. HENRY FORD HEMP CAR!!! it's PERFECT for the automotive industry. but if we used it for this, car insurance companies, car manufacturers, lawyers, auto body shops, and good ole big brother wouldn't be making any $$$ as there is too much profit to be made from disaster.

Sarah 33 days ago

Why does it have to be hemp?

This is something I don't understand. Even though bio-plastic can be made from banana skins, grass clippings, avocado shells, and many other waste vegetable matter that we have in great abundance, everyone wants to use hemp.

Chris 117 days ago

Why can't we make all our plastics out of hemp?

Because Hemp captures 5 times the CO2 that trees capture and when used in any process it holds that captured CO2 such as in Hemp Plastics and Hemp-crete. Also it is much less expensive to produce and to process and far less polluting. It can replace the fossil fuels and chemicals associated with the fossil fuel industry and the lumber industry combined. Hemp is far superior to wood pulp and it is tested to be 10X stronger than steel which means we can use hemp plastics in parts to replace steel in use today. Meaning less pollution from another industry.Hemp does not put Benzene, Toluene and Xylene into our environment when processed or burned such as in fuel and other processes. Including MTBE which has been ruining our well water for years now. We also would not need oil from any other country if we grew Industrial Hemp and replaced the fossil fuels. Henry Ford knew that in the 30's-40's. He had a car made with Hemp body parts. He ran it on Hemp derived Fuel and it was far less polluting than the cars of today. The only reason it was outlawed was because DuPont would not have been able to get his fossil oils synthetic Nylon and Rayon and etc to pass. Hemp fibers are up to 20 feet long wood fibers and glass fibers and plastic fibers period are less by far. The longest wood fibers are less than 2 inches long. Henry Ford took a sludge hammer to his plastic drunk door on his car and it did no damage at all. It would have shattered synthetic fossil derived plastics and it would have dented metal panels. Your working for the Elite Satanic worshiping punks so you can try and hype all you want to save DuPont and Hearst and all the rest so we still need them but with Hemp, we are free of them!!! They know it, you know it we all know it which is why your bull you know what stinks to high heaven.

Jah Wins 117 days ago

THANK YOU!

I was thinking the same things as I was reading this. So we would have to grow a lot of it? Ok. That's it? We'd have to test it for quality control, and it's expensive? Cleaning up the planet is expensive. Pointless!? Wow, so you aren't really wanting to solve the plastic pollution problem, just continue to kick the can down the road. If we really want solutions, they are out there. So sick of the excuses as to why we are not using bioplastic with all our plant waste, and hemp! It's time to ditch the petrol plastics, just like we ditched the steam engine. My guess is the real argument to why we aren't making the necessary changes have to do with money. Cut the excuses, and get real. This would hurt shareholders' bottom line.

AC 75 days ago

Truth About Plastics

Rose Broke's comments are an example of spin and explaining away the destruction of our planet. Plastic has increasingly become more of an environmental hazard, threatening our planet. We need ways to reduce the plastic problem, not lie about it or make excuses. And there are things we can do:

1) Hemp and biodegradable plastics ARE part of the solution.

Nobody is saying that they must be a complete or perfect replacement, but rather they can help REDUCE the problem. Doing nothing, except producing more plastic pollution, is: laziness, greed, and destructive.

2) Doing research and testing is a lot cheaper than finding a new planet.

Let's not pretend there is no money to find alternatives, other than staying the course and destroying the environment. If the plastic industry was finding viable solutions to reduce the problem, there would be less talking about banning.



John more than 1 year ago

Re: truth about plastics

Hi John, thanks for commenting. I do like an engaging debate and you raise a lot of interesting points which I had hoped the article cleared up a bit.

I do agree that polymers from bioplastic feedstocks can in some cases be ideal for certain applications, but not all. And at no point do I dismiss research and testing for end markets for recycled materials. We should be investing in end markets for recycled materials and ensuring the best materials for the job are used with as little carbon wastage along the entire supply chain as possible. This is an editorial piece and therefore my opinion but your arguments are of course valid and reflect a lot of other people's views.

Rose Brooke more than 1 year ago

The Plastic Lie

The Plastic Lie is something that has been crafted very carefully by the big plastic producers on Earth, the likes of ExxonMobil, Shell, Coca-Cola et al. They have been able to push the fake argument that the reason plastic pollution is starting to overtake every corner of the planet, that it is due to consumers not recycling it fast enough! Which is an embarrassingly fraudulent argument, and protects massive corporations from their true responsibility of destroying our environment!

"Recycling plastic is to saving the Earth what hammering a nail is to halting a falling skyscraper. You struggle to find a place to do it and feel pleased when you succeed. But your effort is wholly inadequate and distracts from the real problem of why the building is collapsing in the first place. The real problem is that single-use plastic—the very idea of producing plastic items like grocery bags, which we use for an average of 12 minutes but can persist in the environment for half a millennium—is an incredibly reckless abuse of technology. Encouraging individuals to recycle more will never solve the problem of a massive production of single-use plastic that should have been avoided in the first place."

John 34 days ago

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