Entrepreneur Nelson Yang is reaching back into Taiwan's history to turn the humble banana plant into an unlikely sustainable textile. Taiwan is now the world's dominant producer of advanced semiconductors but the yellow fruit, still widely grown on the island, was once a source of patriotic pride.
Yang's Farm to Material, headquartered in the central Changhua rural belt, is turning banana fibre into textiles he hopes will one day supply global sneaker brands.
"Back in 2008, European (sneaker) 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," he told Reuters.
"So we've been working based on that concept. What we're doing now is making sure that all our material sources come from food or leftovers from agriculture or the food industry. We then transform those leftovers into usable materials."
Under Japanese colonial rule from 1895-1945, Taiwan was renowned for its fruit, especially pineapples and bananas, and in the 1960s, the island branded itself the "banana kingdom" to boost exports, now long since overtaken by the tech industry.
Yang's company takes the middle section of the banana plant, known as the pseudostem and normally abandoned in the field after harvest, then crushes and dries it to produce the fibres that can make clothing.
Some of the fibres are turned into yarn that can be blended with cotton for socks and can also be turned into vegan leather.
The business is still in its infancy with no orders from apparel companies.
"Banana fibre 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 department at the Taiwan Textile Federation.
"Banana fibre could become a new highlight for Taiwan in the field of biomass fibre in the textiles industry."
Several explosions and bursts of gunfire were reported in Kabul late Thursday, according to local media and residents, with the cause and possible cas...
A French court on Thursday rejected the appeal of a former construction worker found guilty last year of the aggravated rape of Gisele Pelicot, and in...
President Donald Trump has said that hostages should be released Monday or Tuesday at a cabinet meeting held in the White House on Thursday....
French President Emmanuel Macron stated on Thursday that the coming hours will be crucial for securing peace in Gaza, with the ongoing conference in P...
Defence ministers from Türkiye, Azerbaijan and Georgia meet in Ankara, Türkiye on Thursday which included the signing of bilateral and trilateral ag...
Several explosions and bursts of gunfire were reported in Kabul late Thursday, according to local media and residents, with the cause and possible casualties still unclear.
A French court on Thursday rejected the appeal of a former construction worker found guilty last year of the aggravated rape of Gisele Pelicot, and increased his prison sentence by a year to 10 years, his lawyer said.
President Donald Trump has said that hostages should be released Monday or Tuesday at a cabinet meeting held in the White House on Thursday.
French President Emmanuel Macron stated on Thursday that the coming hours will be crucial for securing peace in Gaza, with the ongoing conference in Paris aimed at complementing the U.S. initiative.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
Gold prices rose above $4,000 an ounce for the first time on Wednesday, fuelled by investor demand for safe-haven assets amid rising geopolitical tensions and expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts.
U.S. shares ended Tuesday in negative territory as investors, cut off from official economic data due to the ongoing government shutdown, looked to alternative indicators and comments from Federal Reserve officials for guidance on economic weakness and monetary policy.
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is targeting a $20 billion capital raise linked to Nvidia hardware, Bloomberg News has reported.
Türkiye’s benchmark stock index, the BIST 100, closed Tuesday at 10,814.11 points, up 0.74% from the previous session.
Euro zone finance ministers are set to meet on Thursday to explore ways to boost the development of euro-denominated stablecoins, amid concerns that the fast-growing market could remain dominated by the United States, a senior euro zone official said.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment