In Italy, hemp offers hope for bioplastics

The small Italian town of Roccasecca has a dream: to manufacture hemp-based plastic. Gone are the days of traditional plastic. No more polymers, those highly polluting petroleum derivatives. No more packaging that takes an average of 450 years to decompose. This village of 7,000 inhabitants has big plans with the a plant related to cannabis.

«A plastic that doesn't pollute, a green, biodegradable plastic. It's the dream!, enthuses the mayor of the commune to Hemp Today. The way to obtain this plastic will be studied from hemp molecules. It will no longer be a synthetic process obtained from petroleum.»

In the Lazio region, between Rome and Naples, the city is giving itself the means to succeed. It has just signed a partnership agreement with’Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie - the public agency that oversees Italian energy policy - and Cassino University.

Bioplastics for food packaging

In concrete terms, Roccasecca wants to set up a supply chain that starts with farmers and ends on supermarket shelves. Food packaging is seen as a prime target for hemp-based bioplastics.

In fact, the plant has the advantage of being highly resistant. «It's incredibly powerful, says Kevin Tubbs, founder of the Hemp Plastic Company, quoted in My San Antonio. It's almost like a spider's web!» It is also less expensive than polymer. « When the price of oil rises, keep an eye on the cost of bioplastics, continues Tubbs. Take a kilo of raw polymer and compare it to a kilo of hemp raw material: hemp is cheaper.»

No wonder the small Italian town wants a piece of the action. «We need people who know how to take hemp and process it».», says Marco Delle Cese, Chairman of the South Lazio Industrial Development Committee. And to attract brains and manpower, the committee points out that a fair price will be paid to farmers.

What's more, Roccasecca will be able to draw on the expertise of neighboring Umbria. This central Italian region has raised funds from the Italian government and the European Union to create - itself - a bioplastics industry. And in both cases, in Umbria and Roccasecca, hemp brings an unsuspected benefit: it «cleans» the soil. The many hectares of cannabis sativa will - in time - purify all the heavy pollution brought in by the region's once-mighty metal industry.