Hemp Housing — Wave of the Future
April 15th, 2009 by Eric
In the United Kingdom, researchers are at work building a new breed of environmentally friendly structures. An association of construction companies and researchers have dedicated over a million bucks on learning how to make houses with hemp-lime.
Hemp-lime is a concrete block made with lime and hemp shives. It’s appealing to builders for many reasons; it’s lightweight, consumes carbon while it grows, while lime leaves a very low “carbon footprint.” In fact, some say that it leaves “a better than zero carbon footprint.”
Professor Pete Walker Director of the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, is spearheading the research.
Walker said:
Using renewable crops to make building materials makes real sense – it only takes an area the size of a rugby pitch four months to grow enough hemp to build a typical three bedroom house.
Hemp-lime housing seems very promising. Will we see hemp-lime houses in the U.S? Not any time soon, I’m afraid. Even though California is the metaphorical marijuana Garden of Eden, the Governator vetoed “The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act” citing a conflict between Federal and State law.
In 2006 Americans spent an estimated $270 million dollars on hemp products imported from other countries. For some reason, American law enforcement officers oppose legally farming the virtually THC-free plant.
