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Welcome back to Current Climate. Concerns over the health and environmental harms of petroleum-based plastic, particularly over its use in packaging for food, beverages and consumer products, keep rising, and yet there hasn’t been a viable, less-harmful material to replace it. That could change.

In a new scientific study, a group of U.S. researchers has found that a hemp-derived alternative material has both malleability and an ability to stretch that’s on par or superior to conventional plastic, and remains durable even when it comes in contact with boiling hot water. Those qualities make it an attractive alternative to plastic used for packaging. And unlike petroleum-based plastic, there’s no indication of toxicity in soil or water as the hemp-based plastic, which is made from low-grade CBD oil, breaks down, according to Gregory Sotzing, one of the study’s authors and a chemistry professor at the University of Connecticut.

Clinical studies of CBD oils, such as for medications to treat children with epilepsy, don’t show harmful environmental effects, and “when this plastic degrades, it’ll degrade like hemp CBD,” he said. “The CBD will get oxidized over time and naturally degrade in the soil.”

Another upside relative to conventional plastic: recyclability. While very little plastic packaging is actually recycled, a hemp-based version would be fully reusable. “Because this plastic is made of CBD, you could upcycle and sell it, converting it back to CBD oil,” Sotzing said. “You could take this thing and depolymerize it, recollect the CBD, and probably do it cheaper than extracting it directly from a plant. So there’s additional........

© Forbes