Banana skins

So I’m OK with apple cores

which apples though?

not all are native to the UK 😀

Orange pips? – what about them?

I’ve taken to splitting the skin into 3 or 4 bits and chucking them in different directions. Just make sure they land on the ground and not hung off a branch somewhere. I ride in wooded areas and would definitely not eat one on the go on the road bike, it’s a good excuse to stop!

But yes, they do release things into the soil that aren’t typically present.

Bit of a c*ntish thing to do into someone’s garden, some people take great pride in theirs. Just look at the feedback to a “rate my ride” photo to see how pedantic STWers are about lawns, pointing and sheds.

Maybe the answer is to wrap the skin in a tissue and compost it when you get back in? No slime, no plastic.

Discarding banana skins is discriminatory to clowns.

True, but it does provide jobs for people who manufacture slide whistles.

How did I know TJ would be Pro taking skins home.

They go brown and are hard to find in a few days. After a week they are fertaliser.

Better than buying mars bars and throwing their wrappers in a bin IMO.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8263161.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/24/bananas-litter-hikers-mountains-scotland

TJ FTW.

They go brown and are hard to find in a few days. After a week they are fertaliser.

So they -are- the same as dog poo then!

soma – years not days

So they -are- the same as dog poo then!

I see what you’re saying. We should put banana skins in plasic bags and hang them on trees 😉

TJ your saying it takes a banana skin years to go brown?

No – but they can take years to degrade.

so ? they still degrade don’t they ?

Great, so after days your left with something the same size and colour as a stick. Which takes years to degrade a bit like a stick?

+1

not at all convinced by the ‘years to degrade’ argument anyhow.

So popular spots become littered with banana skins in the process of degrading.

I am astounded you guys cannot see this. Its about respect for the countryside. You don’t leave anything behind you. Just take your banana skins home.

Every workday lunchtime for years I used to throw a banana skin over a railway bridge. Imagine my surprise when one day the bridge was being rebuilt and I noticed the pile of brown banana skins in the undergrowth!

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

Thanks Mr Patron of Ising 😉

It was tongue in cheek, I thought you might have realised.

The trust estimates that there are now 1,000 banana skins strewn across Ben Nevis

ACE! wonder how much time and resources they spent working that out 😯

maxray

It was tongue in cheek, I thought you might have realised.

straight over my head 😳

So popular spots become littered with banana skins in the process of degrading.

it’s not litter, it’s nature. if it caused plant or habitat destruction i wouldn’t do it.

trailmonkey – really? You have banana trees in your part of the UK?

i said it’s nature – things decomposing in the wild.

i didn’t say that bananas were indigenous.

and yes, banana plants will grow this far south iirc even if they will not fruit

TJ – I’d agree re: ecological sensitive areas but the majority of us ride on the edges of urban areas in aqlready managed environemnts (whether that’s woodland or farmland) the impact of banana skins in such areas is irrelevant compared with the other enviromental factors at work affecting the ‘natural’ ecology.

Thats the problem – bananas being non indigenous we do not have the flora and fauna and climatic conditions to degrade them – so they hang around for years. see rockeitmans post above

Thats the problem – bananas being non indigenous we do not have the flora and fauna and climatic conditions to degrade them – so they hang around for years. see rockeitmans post above

but it’s not a problem, people just seem to want to make it one.

wwaswas – so because the environment is degraded than its OK to degrade it further? How about a few plastic bags or old car tyres?

TandemJeremy – Member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8263161.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/24/bananas-litter-hikers-mountains-scotland

Still no facts on altering soil composition.

Paper bag – 1 month

Apple core – 8 weeks

Orange peel and banana skins – 2 years

Great! I’ll slice it into a paper bag and throw that away instead! Paper is indigenous to the UK!

I think I understand now.

Birds flying between lands, dropping food waste = nature.
People flying between lands, dropping food waste = ecological menace.

Glad we cleared that up.

wwaswas – so because the environment is degraded than its OK to degrade it further

other than taking a bit of time to compost I’ve not seen any evidence presented that a banana skin discarded in the middle of a hedge or whatever does degrade the environment in these areas.

looks like a menace to me:

PP – its the potassium in them.

Im sure this has happened before.

TJ has sided on some argument about environment impact. Then used some extreme case such as the caingorms plateau.

In reality most of us ride in the outskirts of Birmingham,London,Bristol,Manchester,Leeds etc

Im sorry but there is no way a banana plant is going out grow the native plants found in these parts.

And if its chucked in a bush no one will even see it.

I though banana trees were really difficult to grow anyhow and need to be grown from cuttings, I though the seeds stopped working once domesticated.

“Cultivated bananas are parthenocarpic, which makes them sterile and unable to produce viable seeds”

Also in most of Mid to lowland England maybe not scotland of the high peak/lakes. The banana can not possibly alter the soil to any great extent.

I just find is astonishing that so many of you consider littering to be acceptable.

If some littering is acceptable such as banana skins then why not dog shit, horse shit, old car tyres, skipfulls of rubble?

TJ Its not littering if its degrading, horse shit does loads of it in the New Forest its just grass after all.

Birds flying between lands, dropping food waste = nature.
People flying between lands, dropping food waste = ecological menace.

A bit off topic, but in New Zealand where I was talking about, I doubt many birds fly there and bring food waste from other countries? Thinking about it, I don’t know how fast birds fly, or how long they take between poos, but I’m guessing that no birds can go 1000 miles before having a poo?

I think most of us have enough common sense to realise that the dropping of a bannana skin in local coutnryside or woods, is not the same thing as somewhere ecologically sensitive such as the Cairngorns or Ben Nevis.

Besides until McDonalds etc do something about their packaging blight, I dont think Im going to worry too much about the odd rogue skin lobbed in a bush.

soma rich – but thats the point – they take years to degrade so it is littering

Bigyinn – so that some people make a bigger mess entitles you to litter?

skipfulls of rubble?

If I could get one in my camelbak I’d be up for that.

In the meantime, I’ll continue chuckign the odd item of biodegradble waste on the ground and off the beaten track in areas that are, bascially, pretty suburban anyway.

soma rich – but thats the point – they take years to degrade so it is littering

your definition.

I find it astonishing that you still take the odd bath when showers are so much more efficient, TJ but there you go. You’re clearly an eco-vandal.

Sorry but I’ll still throw bananas away in hedges. As ever, I won’t throw them somewhere that they’re highly visible or likely to pile up while decomposing. Common sense as usual.

it is not littering TJ to most people because it will degrade…you may as well call skimming stones littering as I have moved them from one place to another.
TBH it dependswhere i am I would not do it on fairly barren rock but would amongst trees or other areas where our native rabbits and squirells can eat it under the rhododendron etc