Starter Kit. Idea 268 of 500. Cluster 13
Fish-leather and fish-skin products from the waste of the processing plants
The mechanism, from the book
An ocean eight times the size of the land, and a fishing fleet that sells its catch on the beach. The Maldives built a tourism industry on water Sri Lanka has more of.
The first step
Collect fish skins from one processing plant, asking what they do with them now, and have a small batch tanned by a leather worker willing to try. Make three simple items, a wallet, a card holder and a strap, and show them in person to a boutique buyer in a tourist town and by photograph to a design shop abroad. A price offer or an order for a small batch is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A boutique or design shop that sells unusual leather goods and will pay for a story of material rescued from waste.
- What leaves today
- Fish skin from the processing plants is thrown away, when tanned it becomes a leather that sells at a premium.
Ask first
- Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Ask which processing plants have fish skins to spare and where they go.
- Central Environmental Authority. Ask what tanning fish skin needs in environmental approval.
Check before you spend
Whether tanning on your site meets environmental rules for chemicals and waste water, and whether the plant agrees to supply skins regularly.
Find out these three numbers
- What do processing plants do with skins now?
- What does tanning one batch of skins cost?
- What would a buyer pay for a fish-leather wallet?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.