Uganda is the world's second largest producer and consumer of bananas. Unfortunately, the fruit contributes to major post-harvest and processing waste, with tons of banana waste ending up in landfill. Now, these waste products are now becoming a vital economic and environmental opportunity in Uganda, which is developing new industries and technologies for banana waste upcycling.
With a global production value of about 10 million tons and banana consumption of almost one kilogram per person, per day, more than 75% of Uganda’s population relies on bananas as a staple food.
Ugandan entrepreneurs are developing new industries and technologies to transform banana stems into fibre for sustainable textile and handicrafts products. This banana waste upcycling process is labor-intensive and not viable for commercial production. To improve this process, Ugandan smallholder banana farmers partnered with the local non-formal engineering sector to develop an extractor machine to facilitate easier banana fibre processing.
Source: weforum.org