 Today we made a brief visit to a coir factory. Coir is part of a dried coconut shell. The material is fibrous and well suited to spinning into a coarse string or rope.
In this photo the woman is feeding the coir into a shredding/fluffing machine to prepare the coir for spinning. |
 Here the woman is “fluffing up” the shredded coir prior to spinning it into rope. |
 The women use a converted bicycle wheel hooked to a small electric motor to help them spin the coir into a small rope that looks a lot like binder twine.
The coconut has to be one of the most useful and eco-friendly plants going – coconut water & meat for drink and food, coir for making rope, mats & bedding and shells are used to make a wide variety of items and also used as fuel for cooking! |