Bananas are great because they are truly a convenience food. They are portable, inexpensive, and high in potassium. You can make puddings, breads, and smoothies from bananas. Allrecipes.com has a little over a thousand banana recipes listed on their site. But there is one recipe they aren’t going to have and it’s for banana paper. Harry Johansing, “The Banana Paper Guy”, does have the recipe for it though and the recipes for several other papers made of sugar, coffee, mango, and lemon. Those may sound like flavors better suited for ice cream but he likes to makes paper out of them instead. He’s been making tree free paper from agricultural waste products since 1997. 

The manufacturing of traditional paper has always been destructive to ecosystems and it’s not just about the cutting down of countless trees. The native trees that are logged (sometimes illegally) are not always replaced with more native trees instead they are replaced with fast-growing tree plantations. These plantations are poor substitutes for the plants and animals that called the former forest home. The bleaching of paper pulp releases toxic chemicals into the environment that could harm humans. Furthermore, the whole milling process uses a whole lot of energy and water. Paper companies have responded to these issues by adopting better practices like reusing water during manufacturing and practicing sustainable forestry. But it’s still not quite perfect and Mr. Johansing figured he could do better and provide a quality product at the same time.

While on a Costa Rican vacation he learned to make notebooks out of locally available natural fibers. He found that over 10 million metric tons of pinzote, the stalk that bananas grow on is thrown out and partially decomposes causing “a severe impact on the surrounding ecosystems, the detriment of rivers and underground waters, also the massive reproduction of flies and nauseous smells.” By using a combination of pinzote, which is mostly made of water, and post consumer materials like newspapers a completely sustainable new paper product is made.

And what about paper that claims to be made from recycled materials? In 2008 Mr. Johansing spoke with the website blueplanetgreenliving.com and he explained,” If you speak to a paper mill representative, they’ll tell you that the label “recycled paper” means nothing. Let me give you an example: In the paper mill, at times they’ll create a larger sheet of virgin pulp than they need. Say they cut a stack of 11 x 17-inch sheets of new paper in half. One half of the stack is 8 ½ by 11-inch sheets that they put in reams and sell as new product. The other half, also 8 ½ x 11-inch sheets of virgin paper, is now excess. It might go back in the mill in rerun, or it might be used in another paper product and be labeled “recycled” without ever hitting a consumer process. The label “recycled paper” can be very misleading to consumers.”

To purchase banana paper please visit ecopaper.com.