Abaca wastes need not go to waste.

Government researchers have found a chemical process that can make the "mountains" of abaca wastes into useful materials for the manufacture of specialty products fit for the foreign market.

Simplicia Katigbak and her co-workers at the Los Baños-based Department of Science and Technology-Forest Products Research and Development Institute (DOST-FPRDI) studied the use of a simple chemical treatment to improve the appearance of abaca wastes.

A technical poster on the project won the first prize in the recent 2004 Southern Tagalog Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium (STARRDEC) R&D Highlights Symposium.

The researchers reported that bleaching in commercial bleach for 30 minutes gave good tensile strength while drying to 18 percent moister content made them pliant enough for weaving.

"We also treated them with 0.2 percent thiocyanomethyl thiobenzothiozole or TCMTB for two weeks to protect them from fungi," Katigbak said.

She underscored the study's significance, saying that about 238,000 tons of abaca wastes are generated every year.

"As much as three-fourths of the abaca plant is left in the plantation to rot once the tuxy or good fiber is harvested. Being the 'abaca capital of the world', the Philippines produces as much as 438 million kilograms of raw materials a year from 133, 563 hectares of plantation."

Katigbak concluded: "This finding is critical because the Philippines' multi-million dollar handicraft industry has a limtied raw material base and needs all the substitute materials it can find." - Rudy A. Fernandez