In these regions hemp has a number of advantages as an alternative source of paper-making fibre. Hemp does not need pesticides or herbicides, and yields three to four times more usable fibre per hectare per annum than forests. Technically speaking, one doesn't need to recycle hemp paper, because it is a renewable raw material. One disadvantage of using hemp or other annual plants as fibre source is that the present pulping technology has been optimised for tree-fibre pulping, so some adjustments in the pulping processes need to be made when applying this technology to hemp fibres. Before going into technical details, we will first examine the technology of pulp and paper making.
Elementary fibres are the basic building blocks of trees and many plants.
All fibres are assembled of chains of cellulose molecules, arranged as a rigid structure. The whiter a sheet, the better the contrast with the ink. Hemp pulp can be bleached with relatively harmless hydrogen peroxide. For some applications bleaching is not required, for instance for packaging paper and board. The greater surface roughness of a fibre, the better it adheres to other fibres in the paper sheet and the greater the strength of the paper.