The company Hemp Technologies has developed a new building material, baptized "Hempcrete" (in assonance with the term "concrete", ie concrete), made starting from the innermost and woody part of the hemp plants, which is later worked and mixed with lime, to create very resistant building bricks.
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La hemp (Cannabis Sativa) could soon become a new building material for homes. It is increasingly used both by fashion, for the creation of eco-fabrics, and in the field of food, for the production of foods such as bread, biscuits, oil, chocolate and tofu. In the United States it is now at the center of attention by thebuilding and the first building of the national territory built with an innovative hemp-based material could soon be made in California.
Company Hemp Technologies has developed a new building material, baptized “Hempcrete” (in assonance with the term "concrete", ie concrete), made starting from the innermost and woody part of the hemp plants, which is then processed and mixed with lime, to create very resistant building bricks.
The new material will be used for the reconstruction of the Knapp’s Castle, a castle located near Santa Barbara, erected in 1920 and later destroyed by a fire in 1940. Of the structure of the past, only the sandstone stones that formed the external boundary of the property remain. The new project plans to rebuild at least part of the structure on the large territory where the ruins lie.
Greg Favall, director of Hemp Technologies, has made it known to the press that hemp can be considered a building material as good as wood for its content of cellulose. Hemp would be able to act by regulating the temperature of buildings, ensuring coolness in summer and preventing heat loss in winter, preventing both problems of humidity and excessive dryness of the air inside the buildings.
I defenders of hemp argue that its cultivation can easily take place through the use of little water and a very small amount of pesticides. Hemp would also be resistant to fires and termites. Structures made with hemp bricks would be capable of absorb carbon dioxide in large quantities. In the case of the castle reconstruction, it has been estimated by experts that the building will absorb into its own walls well 12 tons of Co2, which otherwise would have reached the atmosphere. If the first project gets final approval, the United States could be one of the first countries in the world to build homes in "bio-bricks "of hemp, friends of the environment.
Marta Albè
