Looking at these stylish bags, do you think it is woven from these headache-inducing invasive plants, water hyacinth?
All along, people have been racking their brains in order to eliminate these water hyacinths. Here is Cambodia to see how local women make these fashionable crafts with water hyacinths.
Every morning, local women would go to the lake to catch the best growing water hyacinth and harvest it back. They would then leave it in the sun to dry for more than two weeks. When these stems are dried, they need to be washed again with clean water.
Charcoal is then used to fumigate it, which makes the stems brighter in color. The stems are then pruned with scissors.
For small stalks, it is used to make some coasters, medium-sized stalks are used to make bags and baskets, and the largest stalks will be used to weave carpets.
Like this big carpet, it takes three people a month to prepare, and the price can reach about $300.
Every day they weave crafts to sell to subsidize their families, and because water hyacinths flood the world, blocking light and oxygen, they can kill other species in the water.
Therefore, people also use all kinds of methods to deal with this water hyacinth, in addition to using water hyacinth to weave handicrafts, in Bangladesh, the local people will weave water hyacinth into grass mats and then use it as fertilizer to grow.
In Kenya, locals directly use a shredder to crush these water hyacinths, and then pour them into a digester to ferment and produce biogas.
What other good treatment methods do you have for water hyacinth?