Bumper passionfruit harvest – just bananas!

03 March 2011 | Posted by simon in All Good News

Bananas are Kiwis’ favourite fruit and around 88% of typical kids’ lunch boxes contain one – that generates a lot of banana skins!

An eco-conscious classroom at Pt Chevalier Primary School in Auckland have taken to battling the glut of banana skins head on and come up with a novel way to recycle them.

The year 1 kids started collecting banana peels in class last year, chopping up them up and popping them under their passionfruit bushes– with resounding results.

“The passionfruit plants just took off,” says Lead Teacher for Education Keren Rego. “We’re convinced it’s the banana fertilizer and we’re determined to prove it.”

This autumn they will putting the theory to the test and taking the banana fertilizer project school wide. They will be collecting all of the schools’ banana peels in two special ‘banana skin bins’, sponsored by All Good Fairtrade Bananas.

“We’ll be planting a control garden this autumn where we will grow the same crop in a bed, say carrots and lettuce, half with banana fertilizer and half without to test the results,” says Keren.

Banana peels are a natural source of the phosphorus and potassium found in many expensive plant fertilizers. In a completely cost free alternative, the kids at Pt Chevalier Primary will now be collecting all of the banana skins in the school in two bright yellow skin bins.

“We chop up the collected skins into a largest bucket, mix them with soil, pop a lid on and keep them in the shade for six weeks. Then use as fertilizer in the garden!

“Bananas are definitely one of the most popular fruits in school lunchboxes. We have 588 children at the school and this equates to a lot of banana skins each day. This is a great way to recycle them and feed the garden at the same time,” says Keren.

Around 170 kids in the school are involved in the vege patch but all children will be encouraged to recycle their skins in the bright yellow bins.

Chris from says we’re delighted to donate the banana skin bins to help with the project. “The small farmers in El Guabo, Ecuador who produce our bananas are always looking for ways to farm their bananas more sustainably,” says Chris. “This is a nice way to see a sustainable approach at the other end of the chain, helping make sure nothing is going to waste.

“It sounds like the kids are on to a winner and could be marketing their own banana fertilizer by next summer. The next test will be to see if Fairtrade bananas help the vegetables grow bigger and stronger that their conventional counterparts.”

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