Swim goggles made from fish scales

Neat post about an experimental plastic substitute made from fish scales over at Brian Lam's ocean-themed blog Scuttlefish. So far art student Erik de Laurens "has made not only goggles, but eye-glass frames, drinking cups, and a wooden table with a fish scale inlay" from fish scales.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: design • fish • ocean • swimming

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millie fink

Nice, but the artist might’ve put a more plausible strap on them.
http://twitter.com/emjb emjb

I can’t really get enthused about yet another reason to empty the oceans of fish.
- travtastic
  
  But I’m sure it’ll be marketed as sustainable!
- millie fink
  
  Do you eat fish scales? (i.e., they get thrown out anyway–it’s not like making these products from a byproduct of fish consumption would necessarily call for more fish killing).
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=713111717 Rui Mandiberg
  
  You could also consider it putting a tiny bit less plastic into the ocean to kill the fish.
  - travtastic
    
    The number of goggles will then increase geometrically.
catgrin

I’d be interested to see what materials tests he’s done on the “plastic”. I don’t just mean strength either. He’s currently only using heat and compression to hold the scales together, so I wonder what kind of testing he’s done doing things like hand washing the glasses. How well do they hold up to dishwashing liquid? It may be that he needs a bonding agent to coat and protect the scales. That said, using a waste product as the bulk of production is still a terrific starting point.