How many bananas do you eat in a week?
Bananas are the most popular and one of the cheapest and most consumed fruits all around the world (more than 100 billion each year). Most banana peels are tossed in the garbage without a second thought. Now, can you imagine the huge amount of banana peel waste? This amazing wrapper is usually thrown away, but what if this beautiful skin could be used to dress or peel up something else?

Using the Banana skin as our raw material we developed the possible fibers in form of a foil and a banana weave.

+ Banana Foil

Peel and Freeze: The first step is to freeze the banana peel to facilitate the removal of the organic residue/fiber that still remains after peeling. You can use a spoon or your hands as shown in the picture below. Subsequently, flatten and overlap the skins together in a sheet. Finally, you need to add a small amount of a starch-based binding agent. Dilute into water potato starch, glycerol, and oil (proportions 1:0.5:0.25) and slightly heated up until homogenous before pouring it on top of the sheet. Don’t forget to drain the excess.

Freeze the peel: Once you have a slight dryer sheet, use a template to cut it into a more manageable size. Food wrappers are always a good reusable solution in this case. Later wrap it on both sides and make sure it doesn’t exceed the wrapper. In this case, Aluminum foil works best.

Cut & Press in aluminum foil: For the pressing and flattening of the sheets, we used a traditional pasta machine, graduating the thickness until we achieved a thin enough foil without destroying the sample. This process helps also to squeeze out any excess moisture left.

Dry the foil: Finally, remove the foil and leave them to dry. You can sun dry them or leave them in a 70°C oven (or dehydrator) for about 10-20 minutes. Make sure you take them out before they wrinkle too much.

+ Banana Weave

Remove, Freeze & Dry: The first step is to remove the peel and freeze it. You can do it overnight or for about 5 hours (until the banana skin is dark). When frozen, banana peels turn dark and get soft. The perfect condition to remove the phloem tissue and bundles. Leaving the leathery peels thin and intact. This step of the procedure will also elongate the ripening stages (freezing slows down enzyme activity and stops the growth of microorganisms) and reduce the strong smell of esters (mostly composed of isoamyl acetate).

Cut: Once you take out the peels from the freezer, let them release the water and dry for a couple of hours. For an efficient and fun way to cut it in thin strips, use a pasta machine (spaghetti-making mode) or a knife in case you do not have one at home.

Braid: As a result, you will get an astonishing texture, which will make the banana peel suitable and easier to braid. Group 3 batches of 3 to 4 strips and follow a classic 3-Strand braid technique. Alternate one section over the other until you have reached the end.

Weave: The braids can be used as natural fiber or threads to weave. Try a classic lattice weaving technique (the one used on pie crust) for a basket weave appearance. Lay the strips vertically and evenly spaced. Fold every other strip weaving the strips over and under one another.

+ Banana Pellet

Banana peels may have beneficial properties to use in the garden, as they contain high organic sources of potassium(K), one of the three major components of fertilizer (NPK) along with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P).

Using a food processor, coffee grinder, or blender, grind dried banana peels into a powder. Mix the powder into your soil directly or compress it into a small pellet using the same starch-based binder as the foil if you want to give it away as a gift.

Conclusions

The biggest outcome of our project is a deep reflection on how organic peels could become second skins for other food and non-food products. Our strongest speculation for future applications and usability is a new appreciation of them as DIY second-hand (kitchen-made) cloth, able to temporarily and (re)wrap and (re)cover.

Although the foil shows potential as an alternative leather, the proportions of the binder, as well as the drying time, need to be further explored to achieve a more standard result. Drying before cutting and pressing could be explored, but as long as the process is done slowly and controlled to avoid quick shrinkage.

When dried, the Banana weave is prone to cracking, but as long as it is slightly moist it remains pliable and flexible. Over a few weeks, it can start to grow molds, which limits its durability and possible use as a food wrapper. For which an alternative approach for fertilizer could be considered, to close its circularity.

However, Banana by-product is an infinitely interesting material for fiber (and not only) exploration, with incredibly rich properties that we all have regularly within our daily lives and kitchens.

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