This week’s product: Hoodlamb Summer Tech 420

A jacket is a jacket, right? Well don’t tell that to the boys and girls at Hoodlamb for they will truly laugh at your face. With the all new Summer Tech 420 they managed to take all the good things from one of their classics into the warm period of year. The outside is made from a mix of 55% and 45% Herringbone organic cotton while on the inside the lining is made from organic cotton Sateen. Besides being comfortable you can also be rebellious in this jacket. Need to hide some documents or rolling paper? No problem this jacket has secret places for it.

Hoodlambs' Summer Tech 420 © Hoodlamb

Hoodlamb was founded in the nineties as a brand specializing in surf clothing. From this point it developed into a brand with a keen vision on sustainability. At their core philosophy lies the use and promotion of industrial hemp which is the basis material for all of their clothing. Besides industrial hemp they also use organic cotton and recycled plastic for their garments.

Hoodlambs' special linging © Hoodlamb

Worth mentioning separately is the lining that is used in the winter version of the Tech 420 jacket. It is made from a fake fur that is soft warm and durable. It is made from 20% hemp 35% percent recycled pet and 45% acrylic satifur. Both summer and winterversion of the 420 are impregnated with a special oil based on hemp seed which ensures that the jackets are 100% waterproof.

Did you know…. (hemp history)

That hemp was the first plant mankind grew for its fibers. Before there were flax and cotton the Chinese planted hemp seeds to make materials as rope and linen. These materials were needed by craftsman and helped to build the earliest elements of our world wide civilization. The oldest example of industrial hemp is more then 12.000 years old. When we stopped roaming the earth and became farmers. Hemp was there and helped us to achieve our goal.

The reason for the early domestication is clear. Hemp grows easily also on less fertile ground. It doesn't require much water. And hemp is resistant to most deceases. In modern days these three attributes mean that only little fertilizer is needed and that hemp grows without the use of pesticides. In ancient timers it meant that without all to much care it grew on almost any soil giving a rich harvest year after year. This meant that in a civilization without any agricultural knowledge hemp was the to go for crop.

As was the case in the 20^th century hemp was grown for military purposes as well. Soldiers fought in clothing made of hemp, used bowstrings made of hemp and defended flags made of the same material. Paper holds a special place within human civilization. For years it was the only information carrier helping getting messages through time and space. In China a form of proto-paper (like papyrus) was made from silk. I was only when ancient Chinese realized that mixing the fibers of hemp with mulberry bark produced a cheap strong and lighter form of paper that writing really took off.  

    

Zeoform available for crowdfunding

Zeoform, the material made from hemp and water, is now available for crowdfunding. With this campaign Zeoform inventor and companyfounder Alf Wheeler hopes to find one million dollar which he will use to build an American production facility which will help making Zeoform available worldwide. 

Video showing Zeoform (video owned by Zeoform)

Willing to invest in what Wheeler is sure to be the material of the future? 

Check: http://www.gofundme.com/zeoform

Building with hemp in Germany

It might sound crazy, but when you look for a house made from hemp in Germany, you won’t find one. Although Germany is Europe’s leading country concerning sustainability nobody managed to build a house from hemp. The question that arises is: why? The answer is difficult to find.

A hemp build house in Oude Pekala (The Netherlands) Photo: Dagblad van het Noorden

It is not the law neither culture. Since 1997 it has been legal to grow industrial hemp in Germany. Farmers and businessman alike used this opportunity. Till 2006 the numbers of hemp fields grew steadily. In 2006 about 1.356 Ha. was grown by 214 companies. In 2014 that number shrunk to 100 companies and 715 Ha. It is striking that the withdrawal of a EU subsidy in 2012 hardly influences the growing of industrial hemp. The number of companies involved in the hemp game remained steady at about a hundred since 2011. In 2014 there combined crop grew with about 300 Ha. So it seems that 17 years of legalized hemp growing in Germany has lead to a 100 farmers growing it with success. 

In spite of the ending of European subsidies it is fair to state that the political will to turn hemp into a success is present. In 2013 Hock GmbH & Co’s president Carmen Hock-Heyl received the ‘Deutscher Umwelt Preis’ for her product insulation mats. These are hemp based insulation panels. And all tough the video made for the award ceremony contains the inevitable joke about smoking the product the cultural barrier to grow and sell hemp seems absent. The packaging of the insulation material show the five fingered leave with pride.  

The lacking of a hemp based house can’t be explained from a lack of production either. Besides of the insulation mats from Hock there are numerous other company’s  that produce building material made of hemp. One of them is Hanffaser Übermarck. A processing plant where farmers bring there crop. Here the plant is turned into raw materials for a number of products. Ranging from building block to insulation and from door panel used in the automotive industry tot humidity controlling mortar.     

Looking for German’s first hemp house is researching pointes that are few and wide across. Connecting them gives to little information to give birth to a pattern which in the end will lead to building a house from hemp. German cellars are moist free due to hemp. The plant keeps German attics warm in winter and cold in summer. German kids are playing on hemp floors. So the answers to why there is no hemp house in Germany is easy. Nobody ever build one or the sustainable explorer that build it never took the effort to share his work with the world.