Now to another story of getting the best out of the natural world around us.
Every day thousands of trees are felled to make paper.
An Adelaide researcher has come up with an idea to not only save those trees, but also make money out of what is now a waste product, from banana plants.
The end result is banana paper -- said to be 300 times stronger than traditional papers, water and fireproof and cheaper to produce.
Landline's Prue Adams has more.
PRUE ADAMS: In the pre-dawn chill of the wholesale fruit and vegie market at Pooraka, it's difficult to imagine a place further from Far North Queensland.
But every few weeks, a banana grower from up there sends a load of banana tree logs to an ex-pat Egyptian engineer down here to be made into something quite innovative -- banana-ply paper.
RAMI AZER: We veneer the banana trunk into thin continuous veneer, and that veneer is then laminated into multiple-ply product, and this can be 2-ply, in the case of normal paper, like this paper here, it's just a simple 2-ply sheet of paper, or multiple-ply board that is rigid and can be a furniture, for example, material substitute.
PRUE ADAMS: Don't be fooled by Rami Azer's humble office at Adelaide University's technology precinct.
This self-described academic, who met an Adelaide tourist in Cairo, married her and settled back here, has his sights set on the world.
RAMI AZER: Australia is the only developed country that grows banana.
All the rest of the other 164 countries that grow bananas are developing countries, and it seems so natural that the technology will come out of Australia, be perfected in Australia, and the machinery is built in Australia, and then sent to the rest of the world to produce paper.
PRUE ADAMS: Across the top of Australia, from Kununnurra to Cairns, the landscape sprouts around 50 million banana trees.
And here's something you may not know -- every year, each tree produces just one big bunch of bananas before being chopped down and left to rot.
TOM JOHNSTON: I've always said we only take one product out of these trees, and that's the banana, but I still believe that tree has got 1,000 products in it.
I'll just show you how fine the fibres can be when we get down into the core of it.
That there is in the middle of every banana tree, every banana tree on the face of the earth, and it's fully natural and I believe it's the biggest find on earth.
PRUE ADAMS: Tom Johnston is a former banana grower in Far North Queensland.
He's the man who sources the banana trees for Rami Azer's brainchild.
TOM JOHNSTON: There are 3 trillion banana trees around the world, and over 20kg of dry fibre in every one of them -- that's each year, and they're a renewable resource, again.
PRUE ADAMS: Banana paper has not yet set the world on fire.
So far, it's only been manufactured in a backyard workshop at Ashton in the Adelaide Hills.
But Mr Azer has plans to build the world's first banana paper factory in Queensland next year.
RAMI AZER: We all know what flame and paper do together.
But the banana paper doesn't really keep a flame on it, which for the building industry, that's an important thing -- and for the packaging industry as well.
If you had done the same with a normal piece of paper, this would have been just gone by now.
So that's one issue, which is safety.
when it comes to fire.
The other one is water properties.
Normal paper, as we all know as well, you put it in water and it just disintegrates.
Our paper, even when it's fully wet, it retains its integrity as an engineering product, and you can't even poke it.
TOM JOHNSTON: It's 300 times stronger than normal paper, so that's got to be good.
PRUE ADAMS: And with Australia growing less than 0.5 per cent of the world's bananas, Rami Azer sees his technology gracing plantations as far afield as Africa, India and South America.
RAMI AZER: Eventually, out of Adelaide, factories will be shipped and exported all over the world to make paper out of banana.
PPY Price at posting:
1.1¢ Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Not Held
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