 Visitors can activate the system Conveyor goes bananas in Eden
August 15th 2006 Bananas don’t just suddenly materialise on the shelves of the supermarket; in fact they have quite a tale to tell of their journey and a new exhibit at the Eden Project, featuring a 50m conveyor circuit from Rusmail Conveyor Systems, will do just that.
Installed by Rusmail in partnership with French company OCA, the specially constructed conveyor carries large bundles of artificial bananas as if freshly picked from the plantation, which will travel down through the various levels of the Humid Tropics Biome to the packing station, ready for shipment aboard the life-size ‘Tropic Trader’.
David Craddock, exhibit design manager says: “Our intention with any exhibit is to connect plants with people. Here in the biome you can see bananas growing and we wanted visitors to appreciate them not just as botanical specimens but as commodity products, important to both the people and the economies where they are grown.”
The exhibit has an interactive element inviting visitors to crank the handle and activate the conveyor system while learning all about the banana’s epic journey. It explores both low volume artisan producers to high volume mechanized production and their methods of picking, washing, grading and packing. For authenticity, some banana bundles will be swathed in sacks sent over from Costa Rica, which are used to protect the bananas from pest infestation on their journey from the plantations.
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