Profiting From Banana Peels

I watched a YouTube video a long time ago on how to extract potassium from Bananas. It’s from the YouTube Channel named Cody’s Lab. To make a long story short, I got a little bit disappointed with all the burning process needed just to extract the potassium in the banana.

But nonetheless, this video got me wondering, what if a person has a lot of sources of banana peels? I can definitely name some people who make a living cooking bananas. They stand to greatly benefit from turning their banana peels to potassium.

But again this got me wondering, with all the costs of burning bananas maybe these people would even lose money trying to extract potassium from banana peels. The process looks dangerous too with the process needing very hot fires just to burn the banana peels.

This is the Cody’s Lab video showing how to extract potassium from bananas:

Video: Potassium Metal From Bananas!

I had a quick look at how much is banana ash selling online and I found that in India they sell for 100 rupees per kilogram which is about 1.35 US dollars. This may not be much for someone who is living in a developed country, but for many people living in developing countries, this could be a McDonalds lunch money.

This amount could even be the cheapest McDonalds meal in the US. So banana peels do have value. If nothing else, banana peels can be made into flour and added to your food. They have the added benefit of being nutritious.

Though I haven’t seen anyone trying to commercially sell banana peels as dishes or snacks, there are many articles online that detail how to cook banana peels as themselves alone or as part of a dish.

The most popular dish seems to be fried banana peels. This may be the most popular one since banana peels could taste like any fried dish once added with the right ingredients. I have personally not eaten a fried banana peel but I have seen people online who actually eat fried banana peels.

Preparing them is simple. All you need is to wash them well and remove the blackened spots of the banana peels. You may also elect to cut them into smaller pieces so they can be more crispier.

Banana peels are also used in skincare. Banana peels are turned into a powder and mixed with other skincare products. So if you are producing skincare products, you can add them to your products.

I did a search in Alibaba and found that banana peel extract sells for between $US 23 to $US 47. As you can see, banana peel extract can be expensive whether turned into powder or as an oil. One of the uses of banana peel extract is in skincare.

Another use of banana peels is as fertilizer. Bananas contain more potassium as compared to other fruits and vegetables. It should be noted that other fruits and vegetables as well as all plants contain potassium in them.

Preparing banana peel as fertilizer is very simple. There are two ways you can do this. One is by creating banana peel fertilizer tea and the other one is by creating grounded dried banana peels. Both forms of fertilizer are rich in potassium so it is your choice on which one you would use.

Banana Fertilizer Tea

The process of making banana tea is simple. All you need to do is to soak banana peels in clean water for a couple of days. The resulting liquid is what is called a banana fertilizer tea. But as you can see, there is a problem in trying to make a business out of it.

Liquid is difficult to store and carry. There is also the added danger that your banana peel tea would become contaminated when it is stored for long periods of time or just by being kept in open air.

As such, banana fertilizer tea as a business product can be very hard. Unless you can find a way to prevent your banana fertilizer tea from being contaminated as well as find a way to make your customers come to you instead of you to them, this kind of business may not be profitable.

Powdered Dried Banana Peels

This might be an easier business venture to do. Preparing powdered dried banana peels is also easy. All you need to do is to dry the bananas. The cheapest and easiest way to do this is by drying them under the sun which is the first step.

Make sure that your banana peels are actually dry. If they are not completely dry then there is a great chance that the moist parts of the banana peels could grow fungi which means that your efforts would just go to waste.

This is because banana peels with fungi are not only bad used as fertilizers, but could be bad for the garden plants or crops they are to be used on. This is because the fungi may contaminate the garden plants and crops as well.

After the banana peels are fully dried up, the banana peels will be turned to powder using either manual, mechanical or electric means. The last step is to put the dried banana peel powder into containers.

As can be seen, there is no processing cost involved. 25 kilogram capacity sacks cost between $US0.05 to $US0.21 on Alibaba which is all the packing cost you will need if you are the one actually doing the packaging.

Besides containing a lot of water, bananas are rich in potassium. In case you don’t know, a lot of living things need potassium. Up to a certain level, the more a plant contains potassium, the healthier it is.

This is why potassium is sold as fertilizer. Commercially sold fertilizers have high amounts of potassium in them. But you do not have to spend a lot of money creating a process where you combine other ingredients to your fertilizer mix.

You can start by selling your dried up and powdered banana peels. Though they are not as effective as other fertilizers which has been infused with other plant nutrients, there are still people who would buy them.

Potassium also lowers the blood pressure of humans which is good news for people with high blood pressure. This is because potassium enables greater sodium discharge from the body through urination.

This is why potassium is sold as a mineral supplement for humans. They can be sold as is or mixed in with other vitamins and minerals. But remember that extracting potassium from bananas can be a very expensive and dangerous process.

As can be seen by our initial Cody’s Lab video, extracting potassium from bananas can be done even at home but you need the proper equipment and environment. Most people cannot afford potassium extraction equipment or do not have the proper extraction conditions.

I did a Google search for the search keywords “banana peels for sale” but got no information on where I can buy banana peels in their raw form. This already gave me a clue on how valuable banana peels are.

I next checked Alibaba which is the biggest online commerce company in China and IndiaMart which is the largest online commerce company in India. I also did not find any raw banana peels for sale.

What I did find however are powdered banana peels for sale. This is the normal way banana peels are commercially prepared and packaged: in powdered form. If you intend to sell banana peels commercially, you must also have the capability to turn banana peels into powder.

Unfortunately, I did not find any information online which tells me where I can find raw banana peels either for free or for sale. This may be due to the fact that the collection process for raw banana peels have been established a long time ago and buyers and sellers have long term relationships already.

For the ordinary would be banana peel entrepreneur, unless you find a large source of free or cheap banana peels, you would not be able to scale up your business. This is the simple reality of things.

For most people like you who want only extra income from banana peels, the first thing you should do is to stop throwing away your banana peels. I know this sounds very basic and even funny, but there are many people who know that banana peels are useful but don’t care and just throw them away.

The next thing you need to do is to prepare powdered dried banana peels. I know it may not seem much, but at least you can use this as a fertilizer for your plants at home. I know we might be just looking at a few cents worth of banana peels, but dollars are made up of cents.

If you happen to be in the restaurant or food business and use plenty of bananas on a regular basis, then selling bananas peels in powdered form could be a good side business for you. Turning bananas into powder form and selling it is not a big disruption for your regular business.

Besides banana peels, you could also consider other peelings from other plant sources such as potatoes which are vegetables and oranges which are fruits. You can profit from them also because they can be used similarly like a banana peel.

Potato peels can for example be also used as fertilizer. This is because potatoes also have a lot of potassium in them. You can also extract potassium in a similar way you extract potassium from banana peels.

This is a video from the YouTube Channel named Project Diaries which shows how to extract potassium from potatoes:

Video: ★ How to Make Banana Peel Fertiliser (A Complete Step by Step Guide)

Orange peels have similar uses to banana peels, they can be used as fertilizer, skincare, animal feed and so on. They also have an added advantage. I checked in both Alibaba and IndiaMart and found that dried orange peels can be sold as is.

They are for example being sold in Alibaba for between $US 3.10 and $US 8.90 per kilogram. This is good news for anyone who have a good and reliable source for orange peels. I for one would not throw my fruit peels without first considering if they have monetary value.

I highly suggest that you do not throw away your banana peels as they have monetary value. They are rich in potassium which is good for feeding animals, skin care, health, fertilizer and so on. Other fruit and vegetable peels also have similar uses.

Extracting pure potassium fro banana peels and other fruits peels is not only costly but could be dangerous. I highly suggest that you sell banana peels and other fruits peels in powdered form as most sellers and probably even buyers want them in this form.

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