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Waste Not Want Not: Uses for Banana Peels

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Uses for Banana Peels

 One of my goals this year is to find new uses for things that I would otherwise throw away. I would never want it to get to the point where I keeping useless things though so I’ve been busy trying to discover uses for all kinds of new things and if I find that they don’t have a use, it’s time to toss them.

Something I always tend to have a lot of is banana peels. Bananas are a cheaper fruit, even the organic kind is less than $1 per pound and I love to dry them in my food dehydrator for a delicious healthy snack. (Dried bananas are a great snack in case you didn’t know! I make them in large batches and freeze what I can’t eat right away. I love the quick energy they give.)

Uses for Banana Peels

I’ve learned that there are so many great uses for banana peels, I’m definitely not tossing them in the trash anymore!

Here are some great way to use up those old banana peels. And with most of these uses you can use either use fresh banana peels or peels off of bananas that have been frozen.

Freshen up a smokey car.

If you recently purchased the car of a smoker, you know how difficult it is to try and removed the smell. Instead of covering it up with air fresheners, stick a banana peel on a plate inside the vehicle. You may have to use a few banana peels over a few days but it will eventually help with the smell!

Use banana peels as mulch or fertilizer.

Because of all of the great minerals in banana peels (potassium, magnesium, and more), they make a great mulch for your garden. Set the peels out in the sun for a few days undisturbed so they can dry. When they are completely dry, grind them up in the food processor or blender. Sprinkle this dried mixture around your plants and mix with the soil. You can also use this dried banana to make a fertilizer for your inside plants here’s my recipe for Banana Peel Fertilizer Spray.

Make aphid spray.

Using some of the dried banana peels that you made for the mulch above, place equal amounts of dried banana peel, coffee grounds, and egg shells in a spray bottle. Fill the bottle the rest of the way with water and shake until the pieces dissolve. Spray on plants that are having aphid issues, it works great!

Uses for Banana Peels

Chicken and compost feed.

Of course one great use for banana peels is always to feed them to your chickens as scraps or toss them in your compost pile. The minerals are great for your flock!

Help remove a splinter.

Place a small piece of banana piece over the area where the splinter is located. Put a bandage over the top of the peel so it stays in place. Keep this on for a few hours and it should help the splinter to start to come out so you can remove it. This method also works for removing warts as well.

Burns

Thanks to reader Marissa C. for this tip!  Reader Marissa grew up in Central America, and it is an old wise tail that banana peels are good for burns. YES, for burns! She keeps some in my freezer in a large ziplock and with seran wrap in between each one and when she gets a burn she places each banana peel over the burn for 15 minutes until the pain subsides.

Relieve itchy skin.

If you happen to get a bug bite, poison ivy, or another kind of itchy rash and have bananas on hand…place the peel over the itchy area to help relieve the itch.

Use it to polish your silver.Uses for Banana Peels

This one seems crazy but trust me, it works! Take a banana peel and rub the inside over your silver that needs to be cleaned. Wipe it off with a damp rag and then buff with a soft cloth.

I’ve seen some other uses for banana peels out there but I haven’t tried them yet. My favorite use though so far is using the dried banana peels for fertilizer! I love it because it actually works and you can easily make it from something you would otherwise toss in the trash.

What are some of your favorite uses for banana peels? Have you tried any of the above?

merissabio

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Comments

  2. I save my peels in a zip bag in the freezer and when I plant I throw a third of a peel in the plant hole first then put in the plant. This year I’m doing this with our potatoes. It and also be used with tomatoes and peppers and egg plant-probably any thing you plant. I have also heard that if you plant roses in a planter add a banana peel before the bush and your rose will thrive and even over winter better. My daughter tried this-one rose bush she did this one she did not and one thrived and one died.

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  3. Never would have thought of all those uses for banana peels. What great information. The most surprising one was using it to clean silver! I will try that. Thanks

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  4. This is a list I have not seen before. Cool. BTW, your pin it button didn’t work correctly for me. It didn’t give me an option to choose a photo and wouldn’t pin without one.

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  5. How awesome all the advise given and to see there are women who care about the home and environment….thank you for all the good advise!

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  6. Wow I never knew there were so many uses for banana peels. We eat a ton of bananas (4 kids) so now I’ll start to dry them for the garden. Thanks for posting.

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  7. I just throw banana peels as is under my rose bushes and never use any other fertilizer. I have beautiful roses every year.

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  8. Wow, these are great tips for banana peels and since I get poison ivy every year, I know what I’ll be using for the itch. Thank you for linking up again with us at the #WWDParty.

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  9. Thanks for the great ideas, I didn’t know most of these! I’ve been feeding our banana peelings to the pig – she seems to like them. 🙂

    Another thing I’ve heard, but haven’t had the occasion to try, is to tape a piece of banana peel over a wart for a few days and the wart with go away (or fall off?).

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    • Banana peel is excellent for skin ….rub on your face and wash after 5 minutes, all brown spots and blemishes will go away 🙂

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  11. This may be a stupid question, but when cleaning silver, do you rub the silver using the outside of the peal touching the silver, or the inside where the banana was?

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  12. I didn’t know any of these, especially about polishing silver. Do you think it would work on jewelry? I’ll try it on one of my own pieces to check it out.

    Thanks so much for this post about reusing banana peels.

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  13. I had just heard about the wart one and throw mine in the compost bin but had no idea about all these uses! Thanks for sharing with Small Victories Sunday. Pinning to our linky board and my gardening and green cleaning boards too!

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  15. I did not know most of these! Itchy skin, eh? I’ll have to keep that in mind, as we always (well most times) have bananas kicking around…thanks for sharing at “Share Your Stuff Tuesdays”!

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  18. What great tips! I only ever use them for compost or the pigs 😉 but these are great tips I must try! Love the aphid spray, have you used that yourself yet? We live on an organic farm, so anything I can use to help with bugs that is chemical free – I’m in! x

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  21. You can also use them to whiten your teeth. Rub the inside on your teeth for 2 min. Then brush. It works! 🙂

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  24. I decided to try your Banana Fertilizer recipie’ Warning, do not put
    them outside to dry’ The birds and other critters will carry them off or
    destroy them. I have some inside drying now,Takes a lot longer to dry,but now I’m about to try to make the Fertilizer’

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  27. How cool! I learned about the splinter trick recently, when my son had a bad run-in with an old fence, but I have never heard of the aphid spray! That will totally be useful. Thanks so much for sharing, and your post will be featured in tonight’s What’d You Do This Weekend. Pinning 🙂

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  29. What great tips! We have a banana tree that has just ripened – so WAY too many bananas, I am cooking up a storm, but besides composting, haven’t thought of other uses for banana peels. Thank you! xx

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  30. I have chronic migraines. I will use a cold banana peel (inside to my skin) on my forehead instead of a cool wet rag. I can’t honestly say that it helps me with the migraines (though some people report that it does help), but it certainly doesn’t hurt. The coolness offers some relief.

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  32. Love these ideas! Never heard of most of them. I usually compost banana peels, but I think it’s important to emphasize that when using banana peels for mulch or fertilizer, to use organic bananas because the regularly cultivated type are heavily sprayed with chemicals while they’re growing.

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  33. No suggestions about banana peels, however, I saw a demonstration on peeling a banana the ‘right’ way! It turns out I’ve been opening them from the wrong end all these years.
    Apparently, apes and monkeys pinch the tip of the fruit end instead of breaking off the stem end. After giving the primate method a try I can verify it’s ease and effectiveness.

    I also saw in a film once ( can’t remember much about it ) where a very young girl on a street in India followed banana-eating tourists around to get their banana skins. She separated the pith from the skin ( rind? ) and fed it to the toddler boy she led around with her.

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  34. Thanks for sharing. I’ll definitely try the aphid one. My poor rose gets covered every year. BTW, I dried my peels in the oven when I was cooking. Worked a treat!

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  35. Thanks for sharing. I had no idea of all of the uses. I have just been composting, but will be trying other things now.

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  36. I use them to take the pain out of mild burns. I usually use a fresh peel and lay the inside on the burn. Just reposition the peel once the burn starts to hurt again.

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  37. Found you via pinterest. Spending lots of time looking around and learning! Just moved our suburban family of 10 to a 28 acre farm. We’ve been milking a cow for 3 weeks now—-never in my wildest dreams—but we love it! Our cow LOVE banana peels. And they are so funny to watch, we hold them up, and they wrap their tongue around them.

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  38. I feed banana peels to my worm farm. They love them and turn them into awesome fertilizer. Love your wonderful ideas

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  39. They work well on bruises too – from what I remember, peel side down and leave on for a long time (or overnight). Learned this when I used to donate plasma and my red blood cells were returned under my skin instead of into my vein. I had a horrid bruise for weeks 🙁

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  40. I’ve been searching the web for an answer to this but haven’t been able to find anything. Can anyone tell me if freezing the peel will still work on your skin or does it lose the benefits after freezing? I’d like to keep some on hand for future use.

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    • That’s a really good question and I’m honestly not sure since I haven’t tried it. What are you hoping to use it for later? You can dry it, I have tried that 🙂

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  41. Rub on hair to make shine…Also a good flea deterrent if thrown around yard. I always rub my indoor outdoor dogs with peels. Make them shine and hopefully deters flea. Dogs never have fleas..Maybe works…Anyway they are shiny, especially the black lab.

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