Besides fruit, banana plants also produce giant stems. These stems wind up making up a huge portion of the billion tons of waste agriculture produces each year. How can we turn Banana stems into something useful?
Vikram NeytalSapling
TexFad, a Ugandan company, is turning this waste banana pseudo stems and other waste materials into high-quality, sustainable textile products. The startup, founded by Kimani Muturi, extracts the fiber from parts of the banana tree’s trunks that can be used to produce environmentally friendly products such as textiles, carpets, biodegradable hair extensions.
The banana tree trunks are first split in half with machetes and fed into a cutting machine. The machine then transforms these trunks into long, leathery fibers that are hung on lines to dry before being processed and used to make high-quality eco-friendly products.
TexFad isn’t the only company to use banana waste to develop eco-friendly products. Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, have developed a novel method to turn banana plantation waste into biodegradable and recyclable packaging material.
https://youtu.be/Ust6Bh1D3GY