Hemp 101

Hemp paper is made from the fibers of the industrial hemp plant (Cannabis sativa L.). The hemp stalk has a layered structure with two distinct types of fiber, each with different properties and uses in paper production.

Bast Fiber vs Hurd Fiber

The outer layer of the hemp stalk contains bast fibers — long, strong fibers that measure 13–25 mm in length. Bast fiber is the premium material used in high-quality hemp paper, textiles, and rope. It accounts for approximately 20–30% of the stalk’s weight but provides the majority of the paper’s strength and durability.

The inner woody core contains hurd fiber (also called shiv). Hurd is shorter and more porous than bast, with a composition similar to wood pulp. It makes up 70–80% of the stalk’s weight and is used for lower-grade paper, animal bedding, hempcrete building material, and as a supplementary fiber in paper blends.

High-quality hemp paper products, like Hemp Paper Company’s bags, use primarily bast fiber for maximum strength. The hurd is not wasted — it’s used in other applications, making hemp a zero-waste crop where every part of the plant has commercial value.

Chemical Composition

The key ingredient in any paper is cellulose — the rigid, fibrous molecule that gives paper its structure. Here’s how hemp compares to wood:

The critical advantage is hemp bast’s extremely low lignin content (2–5%) compared to wood (25–35%). Lignin is the compound that makes wood rigid, but it weakens paper over time — it’s what causes old newspapers to yellow and become brittle. Removing lignin from wood pulp requires harsh chemical processing, typically involving chlorine bleaching that produces toxic byproducts including dioxins. Hemp’s low lignin means less chemical processing, less environmental contamination, and paper that stays strong longer.

How Hemp Paper Is Made: The Decortication Process

The first step in turning hemp stalks into paper is decortication — the mechanical process of separating the bast fiber from the hurd. Decorticating machines break the woody core and strip the outer bast fibers away, producing two distinct material streams.

After decortication, the bast fibers are cleaned and processed into pulp. Because hemp bast has such low lignin content, this pulping step requires significantly fewer chemicals than wood pulping. The pulp is then pressed, dried, and formed into paper sheets using standard papermaking equipment.

The entire process — from planting hemp seed to finished paper — can happen within a single growing season. Compare that to tree-based paper, where the raw material takes 20–80 years to grow before it can even enter the pulping process.

Hemp’s Environmental Advantage

Beyond fiber quality, hemp offers dramatic environmental benefits over tree-based paper. Hemp absorbs more CO₂ per acre per year than any commercial crop, making hemp paper production effectively carbon-negative during the cultivation phase. Hemp requires no pesticides, minimal water compared to cotton, and actually improves soil health through phytoremediation — it can clean contaminated soil while growing. Every hemp paper product represents a choice to protect forests, reduce chemical pollution, and actively remove carbon from the atmosphere.

A Brief History of Hemp Paper

Hemp paper is not a new invention — it is the original paper. The oldest known paper fragments, discovered in China and dating to approximately 200 BCE, were made from hemp fiber. For the next two thousand years, hemp remained the dominant fiber source for paper production worldwide.

By the 6th century, hemp papermaking had spread from China to Korea and Japan. It reached the Middle East by the 8th century and Europe by the 13th century. The Gutenberg Bible, printed around 1455, was printed on hemp paper. The first two drafts of the United States Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper. For centuries, hemp was simply what paper was made from.

The shift to wood-based paper began in the mid-19th century, driven not by material superiority but by the industrialization of logging. Trees were already being harvested for lumber, and paper mills could use the waste wood. By the early 20th century, wood pulp had become the dominant paper fiber. Hemp cultivation in the United States was further suppressed by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which made growing hemp prohibitively expensive, and later by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

The 2018 Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp cultivation in the United States, reopening the door for hemp paper production at commercial scale. Companies like Hemp Paper Company are now rebuilding the infrastructure needed to make hemp paper a mainstream alternative to wood pulp — returning to a fiber source that was the global standard for over two millennia.

The Water and Chemical Advantage

Tree-based paper production is one of the most water-intensive industrial processes. Pulping wood fiber and bleaching it white requires enormous volumes of water, much of which becomes contaminated with chlorine compounds, dioxins, and other toxic byproducts. A single ton of conventional paper can require 10,000–20,000 gallons of water to produce.

Hemp paper production uses significantly less water per ton. More importantly, hemp’s low lignin content means the pulping process requires fewer — or potentially zero — chlorine-based bleaching agents. This dramatically reduces the toxic chemical output of the paper manufacturing process. For businesses and governments tracking their supply chain environmental impact, switching from tree paper to hemp paper reduces not just deforestation but water pollution and chemical contamination.

Hemp Paper Today

Today, hemp paper is commercially available for packaging applications including retail bags, food service bags, carton packaging, and paperboard. Hemp Paper Company manufactures 100% hemp fiber paper bags in five standard retail sizes, all USDA Certified Biobased at 100% biobased content. These bags are food-safe, backyard compostable, and rated to hold up to 20 pounds — approximately twice the weight capacity of equivalent tree paper bags.

The hemp paper industry is still in its early growth phase, with costs currently higher than tree paper due to limited processing infrastructure. However, prices are decreasing as cultivation scales under the 2018 Farm Bill. Industry analysts project that hemp paper will approach cost parity with tree paper within the next decade as dedicated hemp processing facilities come online and economies of scale are achieved. For businesses ready to make the switch now, hemp paper offers a demonstrably superior product with genuine environmental credentials backed by federal certification.