Sustainability of Marine Life into Jewellery Design

Abstract

People have been collecting recyclable materials to be recycled into useful products for decades. For this research, it is interesting to find out on waste of fish skin that they could be recycled into useful products. This fish is known as Starry Triggerfish. The characteristics of this fish skin are that it has the potential to be used as recycle products by applying the concept of ‘waste to wealth’. Jewellery is a body ornaments produced using precious metals, such as silver or gold consolidated with gemstones for decorative purpose. The sustainability characteristics will be identified by how the products will be maintained by utilizing their functions and aesthetics values. The problem statement of this research is that fish skins are one of the major wastes from fish processing, of which the skin of fish processed was often dumped back into the sea with a potential to pollute surrounding waters. This research was done with three objectives. First is to understand the potential of marine life to be consolidated in jewellery design, to develop the competitive marine life-based material as a supporting material in jewellery design and finally to achieve a sophisticated jewellery design based on marine life as a supporting material that has potential to be commercialized. This research was done with experimentation method. The experiment was conducted to know the best colouring technique on fish skin and to choose the best technique to consolidate the fish skin on jewellery design. The experiments resulting in the best techniques and highest sustainability are the potential of this subject matter. The consolidating of marine life-related material with metalsmithing techniques enhancement gives a new phrase in the jewellery industries. It becomes an important task to the researcher to uphold and promoting the influences of marine life, especially the Starry Triggerfish to Malaysian designer who was involved in the industrial jewellery designing. As a conclusion, Malaysian product designer will be seen not just as an ordinary designer being but also as a high-potential designer in a variety of product designs. Marine life encompasses a lot of potential that can be consolidated in product manufacturing.