CHANGHUA, Taiwan — That banana peel you throw out is a precious commodity in Taiwan.
One company is turning the peels and other pieces of trash into fibers for clothing.
Entrepreneur Nelson Yang is on a mission to turn bananas into a sustainable material.
“What we’re doing now is making sure that all our material sources come from food, or leftovers from agriculture or the food industry,” said Yang. “We then transform those leftovers into usable materials.”
The yellow fruit, still widely grown on the island, was once a source of patriotic pride.
In the 1960s, Taiwan, which called itself the “Banana Kingdom”, was renowned for its fruit, especially pineapples and bananas.
That title faded with the rise of the tech industry, and the country is now a global leader in semiconductor production.
But Yang’s company Farm To Material is trying to revive that legacy, using the banana plant’s pseudo stem to produce fibers that can be woven into clothing.
“Back in 2008, European brands told us that they were hoping to find a way for food and materials to be produced in parallel, meaning that food and materials are yielded from the same land,” said Yang. “So we’ve been working based on that concept.”
Some of the fibers are spun into yarn, which can be blended with cotton for socks or even turned into vegan leather.
“Banana fiber actually performs better than regular cotton in terms of water consumption, absorbency, and supply stability, making it highly promising for future applications,” said Charlotte Chiang, director of the innovation and sustainable design at the Taiwan Textile Federation.
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