Japanese university to turn banana wastes into textiles

Japanese university to turn banana wastes into textiles

BY GEORGE KAGAME

Rwanda's desire to become a regional centre for technological innovation has received a boost after a group of Japanese experts-in turning banana leaves into textile materials-promised to train Rwandans how to exploit the popular crop beyond food and manure.

The 10 member team from Tama Art University Tokyo are visiting the country to assess how the banana crop can be exploited beyond just making food and manure for which it is popularly used in the country. The process to turn banana leaves into textiles was developed by Tama Art University which specializes in design and textile techinolgu. It was unveiled during the Tokyo International Cooperation and Development summit in May this year said Koichi Hagiwara, the Industrial Development Officer from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization who was also part of the delegation said.


He added that President Paul Kagame who attended the summit was impressed by the technology and expressed his desire to have the university team develop it in Rwanda which produces a large number of bananas.
The team also held a one day working seminal at Kigali institute of Science and Technology where 40 stake-holders in the banana industry were trained on how to turn banana leaves into a cloth.Professor Kyoko Hashimoto who lead the delegate from Tama Art University said her university as the first to develop this technology and Rwanda would be among the first countries to benefit from it.

Hagiwara said that even if the technology was developed in Japan, his country does not produce banana they intended to export the technology to the countries that grow the crop. He said that the Lake Victoria Basin in which Rwanda is located produces over 14 billion tones of bananas annually and most of the crop is wasted. He added that the team was here to: "awaken the people in the region to use the banana waste, Tama Art University is ready to transfer and train Rwandans this technology to help Rwanda develop, the university will also receive and train Rwandans to learn about the techical aspects of turning banana leaves into textiles."

Professor Romain Murenzi, Minister in the President's office charged with Science and Technology said this scheme would bolster the government in its desire of imparting technical skills among the citizens. He added that so far, the government was only using banana wastes in its bio-diversity programmes.