Hemp Toilet Paper: Good for Health & Not Harmful to the Environment

By Harry Cooper

What is Hemp Toilet Paper?

Hemp is a fibrous material that comes from a plant of the same name. Hemp products have been around for thousands of years. The material has been used to make hemp paper, hemp rope, and hemp clothing, among other things.

Hemp was first used to make toilet paper in 1857 by Joseph Gayetty. However few people bought into his idea of hemp toilet paper despite its revolutionary design.

Many people nowadays believe we should have been using hemp to make toilet paper from the start. Not only is it more environmentally friendly than traditional toilet paper, but it is also easier to produce and higher quality.

What’s Wrong With Regular Toilet Paper?

Most people would say toilet paper is one of the most important inventions that we use in our everyday lives. However many people don’t realize that every step of toilet paper manufacturing is devastating to the environment.

The Environmental Impact of Regular Toilet Paper

The environmental impact of toilet paper starts with paper production in general. Paper production requires massive amounts of wood that come primarily from old trees.

Toilet Paper Production Leads to Deforestation

Almost 80,000 acres of forest are cut down every day for the sake of producing paper and other wood products. Of those 80,000 acres, 270,000 trees are used for toilet paper.

Deforestation is one of the most serious environmental issues in today’s world. Not only are trees an integral part of ecosystems around the world, but they are also essential in regulating global climate.

Animals around the world rely on trees for shelter and as a food source. Along with this, deforestation can disrupt ecosystems as tree roots are often one of the only things standing in the way of soil erosion, which can cause harmful runoff into water systems.

Trees are also nature’s own way of combatting climate change. One acre of forest can absorb up to six tons of carbon dioxide and replace it with four tons of oxygen.

Thus, every time we use conventional toilet paper we are in part contributing to deforestation. If we don’t start to use a sustainable alternative to traditional toilet paper, we may find ourselves on a planet without trees due to toilet paper consumption.

The Chemical Additives in Regular Toilet Paper

The process of making toilet paper is not only environmentally unfriendly in that it contributes to deforestation. The manufacturing process of toilet paper can also be harmful to the environment.

The virgin pulp that comes from wood to make toilet paper is often not soft enough to be made into actual toilet paper. Because of this, companies almost always need to add a variety of harmful chemicals to soften the pulp and make conventional toilet paper.

More often than not, the chemicals added in toilet paper production are incredibly dangerous and volatile. Some of these chemicals can even include chlorine and bleach.

These harsh chemicals cause many adverse health effects. These can range anywhere from developmental and reproductive issues, to immune system damage, and can even cause cancer.

The chemicals added in toilet paper manufacturing are not only problematic because of their effects on human health. When we flush, we put the chemicals found in toilet paper into water systems around the world.

The Alternative: Hemp Toilet Paper

In the extraction of raw materials, production, and disposal of conventional toilet paper we can see some serious environmental issues. Luckily, hemp toilet paper can provide a solution to almost all of them.

No Deforestation for Hemp Toilet Paper Production

Making toilet paper requires a lot of wood from a lot of trees. However, as the name suggests, hemp toilet paper is made entirely out of hemp plant, and therefore requires no trees to be cut down.

Trees take an incredibly long time to grow and are a fairly non renewable resource. Hemp plants on the other hand, are incredibly easy to grow.

Hemp requires very little water, and are much easier to maintain than trees. On top of that it takes anywhere from 20-80 years for trees to grow and reach maturity, whereas hemp plant can be ready to harvest within 120 days.

A hemp plant also produces a lot more useable hemp pulp than trees produce wood pulp. Wood is made up of about 30% cellulose fibers, whereas hemp cellulose fibers make up about 85% of the hemp plant.

These natural fibers are the primary ingredient in any toilet paper. The fact that hemp fibers give such good bang for their buck supply makes hemp crops and thus hemp toilet paper not only more sustainable than regular toilet paper, but also more practical.

No Added Chemicals In Hemp Toilet Paper Production

Regular toilet paper requires a lot of chemicals in the initial processing of the wood pulp in order to soften it. However, Hemp fiber is naturally softer than toilet paper, and requires no chemical additives.

Because of the naturally soft fibers that are used to make hemp toilet paper, no harmful chemicals come into contact with humans or the environment. On top of not being harmful, hemp toilet paper has a lot of properties that can actually make it beneficial to human health.

The Health Benefits of Hemp Toilet Paper

Hemp toilet paper is free of a lot of the harmful chemicals found in regular toilet paper. Along with this, hemp toilet paper contains a few substances that can actually create a lot of health benefits.

Hemp is one of the most naturally concentrated plants in certain bioactive components. These bioactive components can be antibacterial, this can help prevent yeast infections, UTIs, and other infections.

Hemp toilet paper also contains a lot of omega fatty acids. These fatty acids help reduce inflammation and can lead to softer skin.

Hemp Toilet Paper – All Around Better Quality

Hemp toilet paper is more environmentally friendly and healthy. On top of that, hemp toilet paper is an all around higher quality product.

Hemp fibers contain properties that make them a lot more durable. Because of this hemp toilet paper naturally lasts longer and is more comfortable.

Some of these properties include hemp toilet paper being able to absorb six times its weight in water. This means that one square of hemp toilet paper will go a lot further than a square of conventional toilet paper.

Hemp also contains oils that act as a natural preservative. As a result, hemp toilet paper won’t degrade over time, giving it a much long shelf-life and making it more durable in general.

Other Toilet Paper Alternatives

Switching to hemp toilet paper can be a great way to reduce usage of conventional toilet paper. However, there are also many other types of toilet paper on the market that are more environmentally sound, one of which being bamboo toilet paper.

Bamboo Toilet Paper

Much like hemp, bamboo grows incredibly fast and provides lots of pulp that can be used to make toilet paper. The similarities don’t stop there, bamboo also contains some of the extra durability and anti-bacterial properties that can be found in hemp toilet paper.

The only issue with bamboo toilet paper, that is not necessarily a problem with hemp toilet paper, is that trees are often cut down to make space for bamboo farms. However, if you make sure that the bamboo products you’re buying are sustainably sourced, then you won’t be helping contribute to deforestation.

Toilet Paper Produced From Recycled Materials

Recycled toilet paper is made by breaking down old pieces of paper by soaking them in water. The broken down paper is then used like any other plant pulp to be made into usable toilet paper.

This process doesn’t require any trees to be cut down or the extraction of any new materials. However, there are still some environmental pitfalls when it comes to this kind of toilet paper.

Toilet paper made from recycled materials can contain some of the harmful chemicals much like conventional toilet paper. These chemicals can come from the treating process used on ordinary toilet paper, or it can come from chemicals found in the paper that is used to make recycled toilet paper.

Hemp in Religion

Hemp (which does not contain the psychoactive THC chemical) and cannabis (which does contain THC) appear in many religions around the world. To give one example, Paul Benhaim describes how the Vedas, a sacred Hindu text written over 3,000 years ago says that: “the Hindu gods sent hemp and cannabis to Earth out of compassion for humanity, so we could improve sexual desires, attain delight and lose fear. A more popular story is that when the gods and demons attempted to produce amrita, the elixir of immortality, they got cannabis.”

Just as cannabis is a powerful drug, hemp forms powerful, environmentally friendly materials. There are a range of religious opinions surrounding cannabis, some in favor and some against. But something every religion can agree on: buy hemp toilet paper for the sake of our planet.

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