If you found a banana skin dangling off your hedge would you throw a hissy fit? Basically I want to know with all these cyclists that lob them away whilst pedalling along how long it takes for it to rot and is it bad for the environment?

3 to 4 weeks according to some random site that doesn’t seem to cite anywhere for its decomposition information.
Hope that helps 🙂

bad for the environment? what happens when the fall from the tree in the natural world?

Best thing to do is wrap them in a plastic bag or two and send them to the landfill, rather than let them rot down harmlessly in the hedge. definately

It seems a little uncaring to lob it into a tree but it is organic and it will decomose quickly.

I lob my banana skins away but I usually throw them out of sight. They’ll be gone before anyone finds them and will do the environment good with their nutrients.

Don’t like it? Bite me.

timc – do you have banana trees in your neck of the woods?

Decomposition depends on, amongst other things, the temperature. In the froze north, banana skins take a lot longer to decompose.

Anyway, I don’t see why anyone (cyclists included) can’t just take them home with them and dispose of them like any other litter.

Best thing to do is wrap them in a plastic bag or two and send them to the landfill, rather than let them rot down harmlessly in the hedge. definately

I always eat bananas on a ride and thats always been my argument when seen throwing them off to the side of trails by walkers. Why let them decompose naturally in a week or two when you can prolong it in a plastic rubbish bag 🙄

At the top of Ben Nevis it takes months and makes the soil too fertile.

druidh… take longer to decompose in he cold north, so what??? it doesn’t mater… its needs to decompose somewhere doesn’t it, so why not in a bush in the countryside?

They make the soil too fertile on Ben nevis do they? what have this effects of this been then?

I don’t know of any cyclists that eat bananas whilst cycling, let alone ones that dispose of banana skins in hedges whilst doing so. Bit lumpy. It’s all jelly babies round here. I do wonder about the composition of people that compose these threads though.

[duncan_bannantyne] Let me tell you where I am [/db].

This has rankled with me since reading a post on here a year or so ago, whereupon a guide in foreign climes (honestly can’t remember his handle) forced one of his clients to go and retrieve a skin thrown into a bush. It sounded like the client was horribly humiliated in front of all the other guests and was made to feel like he’d chucked a bag of sh1te out of his car window.

I’m most definitely in the camp which believes a well hidden skin is better off decomposing in natural surrounds than in a bin bag in a landfill.

EDIT; and for that reason, hope ye slip on my discarded skin – what tyres for banana skids?

Like all similar issues i ‘d say its not straight forward.

A banana skin on an open moor or countryside will, like discarded food attract rodents. In spots where stopping is popular they will be on large enough numbers to upset the balance of naturally occuring birds and mammals.

For this reason I’m for bury or take home for composting, except in colder climbs where talking home not in plastic Bag for composting is best.

Where exactly did you see the offending peel? I know a banana addict that cycles 😆

ah **** it. I’ll confess. I’m collecting them to throw at old ladies as I whizz past. It’s a hobby of mine. An old lady shouted at me one day because I let the dog do a poo in public, and I’ve hated old people ever since. I’ve constructed a special peelholder machined out of a solid billet of alu and a secret special bar mount of my own design. I’ve got bicyclists testing them all over the country at the mo. They’ll be in production around December. Any colour you want.

I just eat them with the skins on. Saves having to chuck anything away.

I threw one in a hedge this morning but it was pretty remote and it was out of sight so it’s OK…

I hate bananas, so it wasn’t me.

Take nothing but photographs. leave noting but footprints (tyretracks)

always take everything home. Banana Skins can take years to degrade depending on where discarded.

Banana Skins can take years to degrade

really? years? wow. do they do damage though?

do they do damage though?

and makes the soil too fertile

bringing it back arround to dog s**t…….

It’s not just the smell/toxixity that causes problems, over time if it builds up in the soil it over enriches it.

Whether thats the top of a mountain or sand dunes that then leads to different plants takeing root and the loss of the original habitiat. In the case of dunes, depending on the management stratergy of the owner they can disapeer very quickly indeed if the righ ballance of plants isn’t maintained.

Obviously that depends on where you are, a bridleway in the home counties isn’t going to suffer in the same way from a few bannana skins.

really? years? wow. do they do damage though?

Don’t you remember the great banana plague of ’04? How soon we forget.

years to degrade depending on where discarded

Is there a map of where al fresco banana composting is acceptable/not allowed we can refer to?

I’ve been discarding banana skins in the same piece of woodland round my way for years, it’s not carpeted in yellow yet.

I’m collecting them to throw at old ladies as I whizz past.

Ah, so it’s you is it? Only the other day, a lady round our way was the victim of a drive-by fruiting.

My brother commutes down a country lane and makes a point of throwing a banana skin into the same garden every day, just to be able to imagine the owners’ confusion.

wwaswas

Is there a map of where al fresco banana composting is acceptable/not allowed we can refer to?

Its never acceptable. Take it home with you.

emsz

really? years? wow. do they do damage though?

alter the soil composition and attract animals

a drive-by fruiting

are coconuts fruit?

Its never acceptable.

It’s perfectly acceptable to me 🙂

This has rankled with me since reading a post on here a year or so ago, whereupon a guide in foreign climes (honestly can’t remember his handle) forced one of his clients to go and retrieve a skin thrown into a bush. It sounded like the client was horribly humiliated in front of all the other guests and was made to feel like he’d chucked a bag of sh1te out of his car window.

I don’t know where that was, but I know guides in New Zealand are very hot on people chucking apple cores away because they are a non native species and can cause all manner of problems. Maybe there was something similar in this case. Non native species are a real problem in isolated places like nz where there hasn’t been the same intermingling of many species that you get in Europe. I think some high mountain environments are similarly fragile as not many species get up that high or something.

TJ, ok, alter the soil? one banana?

attract animals? which are going to do what? Eat it? Problem solved, yes?

Banana Skins can take years to degrade depending on where discarded.

Yes, TJ. I always try to avoid discarding them on the surface of the moon to avoid this issue. Or on my regular trips to the Arctic Circle. However, when i’m in the UK, I expect about a month to decompose. 🙄

emsz.

the point is that if you can do it everyone can and at popular spots it becomes not one banana but many plus all manner of other biodegradable stuff.

Take nothing but photos leave nothing but footprints is how we should all operate

Take nothing but photos leave nothing but footprints is how we should all operate

So I can’t take my memories with me and I can’t leave them behind?

I only ever eat nannas when road riding, in a ditch with the skin is OK with me

I remember being taught at school that:
it’s fine to throw indigenous organic waste away in the countryside as it will decompose fairly quickly..
But as banana skins take a notoriously long time to degrade and being outside of their natural distribution, our colder climate means that they take a lot longer.. so we were taught not to lob them out as animals have trouble digesting the skin..

I have no idea how much of this is scientific fact.. although if my dog gets hold of a ‘nana she has been known to poo out the whole skin the next day..

🙄 STW never ceases to amaze me!

What about all those birds that s**t all over the land TJ spreading seeds from the fruit that they eat… it is a travesty I tell thee! The ecosystem will be in turmoil.

maxray – native species distributing native seeds. Thats how the ecosystem works

if you can’t see the difference I am surprised.

A banana is not a native of GB

Throwing banana skins is littering.

You are not a native of Scotland, yet you reside there.

Is an ecosystem suffering because you are misplaced?

Given that a banana isn’t likely to germinate if discarded, I’m struggling with the relevance of the ‘not a native species’ theory

A tomato isn’t either but the amount of tomato seeds that get distributed all over the country is colossal

Discarding banana skins is discriminatory to clowns.

alter the soil composition and attract animals

Attracting animals in the countryside? Whatever next? 🙄

Are there any ‘facts’ about banana skins altering soil composition for us to peruse?

A banana is not a native of GB

So I’m OK with apple cores, bits of flapjack and cake crumbs then?

Throwing banana skins is littering.

hmmmm, ok I think your right, i think i’ll take them home from now on.