Pineapple, banana fibers make good fabrics

There’s big money in pineapple and banana fibers, which are commonly regarded as wastes.

Like the fiber of abaca, those of pineapple and banana are good materials in making Philippine tropical fabric (PTF).

Actually, the fibers of the by-products of these three crops can be extracted, degummed, spun, and woven as inputs to the textile industry to create indigenous fabrics, pointed out the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Textile Research Institute (DOST-PTRI).

For instance, when PTRI celebrated its 35th anniversary last Jan. 30, its employees wore for the first time their uniform made of a blend of pineapple fiber, cotton, and polyester.

DOST Secretary Estrella P. Alabastro also donned a dress woven from banana fibers and polyester. PTRI director Dr. Carlos Tomboc, for his part, had a barong produced from the traditional way of handloom weaving and imparted a light blue color extracted from indigo, a common shrub.

To date, PTRI has succeeded in extracting yellow dye from narra seed shovings, brown dye from coconut husk, red dye from achuete seeds, and black dye from talisay leaves.

Dr. Tomboc said the institute has so far established 35 indigenous dye sources ready for textile application, the latest of which is blue dye from malatayum plants.

Over the years, PTRI has generated technologies for the conversion of raw fibers from abaca, banana, and piña into spinnable mass using chemical and mechanical processes that cater to the technical requirements for the production of garments and house linens.

To push through the full development of Philippine tropical fabric, a bill is now pending in the House of Representatives and in the Senate seeking to prescribe the use of such fabric for official uniforms of public officials and employees.

The bill is sponsored in the Lower House by Rep. Krisel Lagman-Luistro of Albay and in the Senate by Sen. Loren Legarda.

As of 2000, Luistro recalled, some 500,000 hectares of agricultural lands in Isabela, Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Camarines Norte, Leyte, Iloilo, South Cotabato, and Bukidnon had been devoted to abaca, banana, and pineapple.

Ordinarily, after the fruits of banana and pineapple are gathered, their by-products are thrown away.

"The potential employment, the creation of strong agricultural linkages, and additional income for our farmers cannot be ignored," Luistro stressed.

Her bill, therefore, seeks to fulfill part of the Constitutional mandate of promoting the preferential use of domestic materials by providing the stimulus for the development and expansion of the Philippine tropical fabrics industry.