Farmers deliver discarded banana trees to our manufacturers directly after harvesting the fruit. They extract the fibers, boil to sanitize, craft into paper, and let dry in the breezy tropical air. No additives, it’s just banana fibers and water. Why must a banana tree be cut after it fruits you may ask? Each banana plant grows from a pseudo-stem. The true stem is underground, around the rhizome that produces the pseudo-stem above it and other suckers from which more banana plants grow. Some call this collection of banana plants growing from the same underground structure a banana mat. After the main pseudo-stem produces a bunch of bananas, you should cut it to the ground because it will never produce fruit again, and even if you leave it in place, a light frost will kill it to the ground anyway. The underground portion of the banana plant remains so it can produce suckers that will grow into new fruiting pseudo-stems.