Hemp Katalyst harvests numerous possibilities for industrial hemp

Apr. 30—HAZLETON — It all started out innocently enough for Duane Shugars.

After 35 years working for the Department of Defense and in the intelligence community space, a friend reached out to him for help putting a business plan together for an industrial hemp company.

"At first I was thinking it was a drug and all that other stuff that everyone thinks," Shugars said. "And then I spent some time helping them write a business plan and researched it all."

The research led Shugars to becoming a firm believer in the benefits of industrial hemp and the birth of Hemp Katalyst, a company of which Shugars is president and CEO.

"I call it a super plant," Shugars said of industrial hemp.

It's easy to see why Shugars would feel that way. The plant has a wide variety of uses — from building materials, to replacing plastics, to even being used in batteries.

All the while helping clean the environment.

"It's funny," Shugars said. "I literally have tried to find every reason not to invest in this company, and I couldn't find a reason not to because of the possibility that this plant can start replacing destructive materials across every industry."

Shugars then ticked off a list of possibilities, including using the plant in "paper, plastic, construction, energy, biofuel, all these different things."

All from a plant that can be ready to be harvested in about four months from planting.

"It's not THC. It's not CBD," Shugars emphasized. "It's not any of those things. It's a very different genetic that's grown for industrial (hemp). It's a seed that produces 15-foot stalks, very thick stalks. And on the outside of that is the fiber. And on the inside is what they call the herd, which is the woody part.

"And growing that and then separating that into the material specifications is what we do."

Growing to the top

The company's growth is almost has rapid has the growth of hemp it harvests.

Just a year ago, the company started farming with 250 acres in Pennsylvania. It currently has 1,000 acres of farmland producing hemp with eyes to expanding beyond Pennsylvania.

"We went from not knowing anything about this industry to now having $2 million in purchase orders connected to over 12 manufacturers," Shugars said. "It starts to become a massive opportunity for us to do great things by simply growing a plant that fully matures in four months, gets to 15 feet, can be used for hemp wood (that is) stronger than oak, stronger than many of those high-priced woods."

Shugar added that oak trees take 80 years to grow to be useful for lumber production, so replacing traditional wood in construction with hemp helps eliminate deforestation.

"You're just harvesting a plant," he said.

He added that the company is close to completing a deal to provide its product to a company that will use it to produce ceiling tiles. Because the tiles will have hemp in them, they will continue to take carbon out of the atmosphere once they are installed.

"If you put it in hemp wood, if you put it in hempcrete, if you put it in a ceiling tile or insulation, each one of those things will be collecting a certain amount of carbon as it's in its place," Shugars explained.

There's also the possibility of another company using a Hemp Katalyst product to make take-out containers for restaurants.

"They are now prototyping a full 80% hemp-based bioplastic that will be fully decomposable — not compostable, but decomposable," Shugars said. "So that means if you put it in the landfill, in 90 to 180 days that thing starts decomposing, and as it decomposes, guess what it's doing?

"It's taking carbon and putting it back in the soil."

It's not just the end-products that are so environmentally friendly either. Even the farming is green.

"I saw it as an opportunity to really change the environment from the inside out," Shuargs said of industrial hemp farming.

"You start doing agriculture, and you start being able to grow industrial hemp, which is a massive carbon sequestration plant, and it's adding all of those nutrients to the soil. And you mix with that regenerative agriculture, what you start finding is you can start making a dent in the environmental issues of today without mandating a bunch of stuff on people."

So you don't need to buy that impractical electric car to help the environment, just build your house out of hemp.

Overcoming challenges

The industry is not without its challenges. The biggest one is the public perception of hemp — a perception Shugars admits he held until doing some research.

"This industry is still rattled with misconceptions of what hemp is," Shugars said. "And until legislation can really separate CBD hemp from industrial hemp, there's always going to be this hangover from CBD, right? So that's a challenge.

"The other part of this industry that's very difficult is finding legitimate funding and money. "Private money investment in this industry because everyone is still a little rattled from the CBD industry."

Still Shuargs sees a bright future for the company and his industry ... and, because of that, the environment too.

"When you start thinking of the amount of plastic paper, the trees we're cutting down ...," he said, "and all we have to do is grow this weed, process it, and infuse it little at a time, little bit by little bit by little bit into all these different industries. It is gonna make a significant change in the environmental footprint without, without telling people they need to buy an electric vehicle or whatever those other things are that are a little more politically charged.

"You're talking about biofuel, you're talking about all the battery stuff, renewable energy. It has an ability to transform the environment. And a lot of industries (can) replacing destructive materials like polyurethane oil, fossil fuels, that are in every single, item in the U.S. If we can replace that with an a renewable material, just think about the oceans, think about the landfills, think about all those things that are being, destroyed."