The COVID-19 pandemic revealed America’s crypto obsession with toilet paper.  Long before stores ran short on food staples, a black market of Charmin and Cottonelle was trading online.  Why America enthroned Number Two in its number one seat says a lot about American culture.    I warrant at least a few PhD candidates will earn their degrees in the coming years by writing doctoral theses analyzing America’s obsession with <<ahem>> feces.  But it got me wondering, what do people do in the alternative?

I outfitted my home with bidet toilet seats a decade ago, so I was more pandemic-prepared than the CDC.  But based on random shrieks from my guest bathroom over the years, I know I am in small company.    So, of course, my ‘inner schmuck’ had to research this.  To my amazement, I found a century-old hemp and toilet paper connection!   My beloved cannabis plant once again rears its head.

Before toilet paper was mass-produced, the affluent, for their effluent, used hemp, wool, and even lace. Poor people used leaves, hay, rocks, seaweed, husks, or scrap paper.

The first commercial toilet papers were invented by Joseph C. Gayetty, which he marketed as an anti-hemorrhoid product in the 1850s under the J C Gayetty brand.  Each sheet was manufactured of pure Manila hemp paper and lubricated with aloe.  In what I suspect would give modern trademark lawyers spasms, each sheet of Gayetty’s hemp toilet paper was watermarked with the company brand, “J C Gayetty N Y.”

Although Gayetty’s hemp toilet paper endured for decades, it was more expensive than alternatives of the time, thus less popular.  Gayetty’s toilet paper remained in common use until the invention of splinter-free toilet paper in 1935.  Yes, you read that correctly, splinter-free.

The availability of forests gave hemp tough competition.  In 1867, the Scott brothers began more cost-effective industrial manufacturing of dry toilet paper made from wood chips.  The long-term effect of using trees as source stock for toilet paper however has led to another problem. Hemp pulp paper can be made without chemicals, whereas wood pulp requires polluting, chemical-driven industrial processing.

Hemp toilet paper is available today (splinter-free) and increasing in presence and availability.  If you are eco-conscious, here are some compelling thoughts about modern hemp toilet paper:

  • 35% of trees cut down are for paper demands.
  • A quarter of all solid waste in landfill sites is from pulp and paper mills.
  • In the US, each person uses an average of 50 pounds of toilet paper a year, which has led to the pulp and paper production possibly being responsible for 20% of all toxic air waste.
  • One ton of paper pollutes 20,000 gallons (76,000 liters) of water.
  • It is cheaper to manufacture hemp toilet paper than regular toilet paper because it uses less energy and chemicals to process.
  • Wood pulp toilet paper requires harsh chemicals to break down the fibers of the tree.  Hemp does not.  Toilet paper requires only the cellulose of the plant.  Trees are 30% cellulose.  Hemp is 85% cellulose.
  • Farmers must cut down forests and then wait decades for forests to regenerate. Hemp can regenerate in as little as 70 days.
  • Ten tons of hemp can be grown in one acre.
  • Hemp fibers are odorless, resistant to mildew and several other fungi, and possess antibacterial and antifungal properties.

The end may not yet be near for wood pulp, but as hemp farms become flush, hemp toilet paper will inevitably roll into all our lives.  Maybe it’s time to wipe the slate clean on wood pulp and give hemp its due?

Gary Michael Smith is an attorney and arbitrator and founding member of the Phoenix Arizona-based Guidant Law Firm.   He is also a founding director and current president of the Arizona Cannabis Bar Association, board member of the Arizona Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, and contributing author to GreenEntrepreneur.