Now that it’s legal to grow hemp in the United States, a man who’s spent the last decade developing hemp „hardwood“ is building a $6 million factory to manufacture the product en masse.

His patented product called „HempWood“ is made out of compressed hemp pulp fibers, held together with a soy-based glue.

While that may sound like some newfangled version of particle board, it’s not.

It looks and feels like oak, but is actually 20 percent harder than the famous hardwood tree.

It also grows 100 times as fast. While it takes an oak tree at least 6 decades to mature, it takes hemp 6 months.

(via BoingBoing)

Hier eine Dame, die noch weitergeht und aus Hanf ein Haus bauen möchte. Sehr ambitioniert und im Kleinen schon umgesetzt, ob das auch nachhaltig Bestand haben wird, wird die Zukunft zeigen.

Growing industrial hemp was illegal in the United States after 1970 because the industrial plant and marijuana were considered to be the same, when in fact they are different varieties of Cannabis. In recent years, some states have changed their laws, allowing farmers to start growing industrial hemp, which is used in everything from clothing to nutritional products to building materials. Oregon grower Cliff Thomason says growing and processing hemp was stymied because it was illegal, but now a knowledge base for best uses can grow, along with the plants. View a hemp home constructed using hempcrete, a building material that advocates claim is mold resistant, breathable, and eco-friendly.

(Direktlink, via Devour)