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Turning trash into treasure: Costa Rican women transform fish skins into sustainable fashion
Costa Rican women, Mauren Castro and Marta Sosa, are part of the Piel Marina cooperative, an all-female organisation which turns discarded sea bass skins into sustainable fashion.
Mauren Castro and Marta Sosa scrapping the slimy sea bass skin.
Costa Rican women, Mauren Castro and Marta Sosa, are part of the Piel Marina cooperative, an all-female organisation which turns discarded sea bass skins into sustainable fashion.
Fishermen in Costa de Pajaros, a village, have been struggling to survive due to regulations aimed at making stocks more sustainable.
The NGO MarViva also helped train 15 women to establish themselves as seafront tanners two years ago. Initially, the women were skeptical about the sartorial possibilities of fish skins, but over time they honed their trade and are now helping supplement their families’ incomes.
Mauren Castro who spoke to AFP said, “We said ‘how can a skin, which is something that gets smelly, which is waste, be the raw material for women to be able to get ahead?”
Describing the procedure, Marta Sosa stated that the scales and any leftover flesh are initially removed by gently rubbing the skin between their fingers. “Then we take it and wash it with soap, as if we were washing clothes. Then we dye it with glycerin and alcohol and natural dye, and then we dry it,” Sosa added.
These women have turned their skills into jewellery creation, selling vibrant necklaces and earrings on Facebook and Instagram. The money they make from these sales is used to support their husbands provide for their families.
Costa Rica is the latest country to catch onto the potential of fish tanning, an age-old practice among Indigenous peoples from Alaska to Scandanavia to Asia.
Brazilian company Nova Kaeru offers leather made from the discarded scales of the giant pirarucu fish, which is native to the Amazon. Members of the Piel Marina cooperative are glad to have a job that provides them with a small income but dream of the day when the leather they make by hand on the beach struts the global stage.
