EnviroTextiles® in the Media

Click here to see us in the Earth Day Special of MTV's Pimp My Ride!

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Click here to see us getting Green with the Fashion Industry!

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Across the web..

The Flying Cloud Eco-Discovery Tour published this article after stopping to tour our facilities.

VoteHemp.com featured our very own Summer Star Haeske, who has not only worked with MTV on Pimp My Ride, but world-reknown designers Versace, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.

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Is weed the new green?

Jun 21st 2007 | SEATTLE
From The Economist print edition

Sprouting soon in North Dakota

"PLANS are afoot for a great expansion of the hemp industry." So proclaimed the 
Department of Agriculture in its rousing 1942 movie, "Hemp for Victory", which 
urged farmers to rally to the cause: "Hemp for mooring ships! Hemp for tow lines!
Hemp for tackle and gear!" The plant's long, strong fibres twist easily into rope,
which made it useful for parachute webbing. The war effort was imperilled when 
Japan's seizure of the Philippines curtailed America's supply.

But despite the enthusiasm of wartime planners, hemp never took root (as it were).
Taxes and regulations, introduced in 1937 but minimally enforced during the war, 
kicked in again during the 1950s. Hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant, which
also produces marijuana-though industrial hemp has a much smaller concentration 
of the mind-blowing compound, THC, than the smokable stuff. America's puritans, 
not to mention nylon-makers, wanted production shut down.

Nowadays farmers are banned from growing hemp without a permit from the Drug 
Enforcement Administration (DEA), which usually refuses to grant one. So many hemp 
products in America-food, lotions, clothing, paper and so forth-are imported from 
China or Canada, where farmers have been allowed to grow hemp commercially since 
1998.

Could hemp make a comeback? America's greens have fallen for the stuff, and not 
just because plenty like the occasional puff. Hemp grows so easily that few 
pesticides or even fertilisers are needed. "Feral" hemp is said to grow by the 
roadside in Iowa and Nebraska. Barbara Filippone, owner of a hemp fabric company 
called Enviro Textiles, says demand has rocketed-sales are growing by 35% a year. 
Nutiva, a California-based hemp company that sells hemp bars, shakes and oils, saw 
sales rise from under $1m three years ago to $4.5m last year. "Hemp is the next 
soy," predicts John Roulac, Nutiva's founder.

American farmers would love to grow hemp. North Dakota, which in 1999 became the 
first state to allow industrial hemp farming, has taken the lead. This week two 
farmers from the state filed a lawsuit to force the DEA to issue permits to grow 
hemp; the farmers had applied for permits back in February, thus far to no avail. 
Ron Paul, a Texas congressman and presidential candidate, could win over farmers 
in Iowa because of his pro-hemp lobbying. In February he introduced a bill in 
Congress that would allow Americans to grow it.

If hemp grows so easily, what about using the crop as a biofuel? A Mercedes-Benz 
"hemp car" did make its way across America six years ago. (Among other uses in 
cars, "Pimp My Ride", an MTV show, recently featured a 1965 Chevy Impala that runs 
on biodiesel and has hemp upholstery.) Perhaps this is just the niche for Willie 
Nelson. He already has his own biodiesel line, called BioWillie, and is not 
unfamiliar with other uses of the cannabis plant.

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Here are some of the publications that have featured EnviroTextiles®!

 

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