This new packaging prototype looks like conventional plastic, but it’s actually made from fish waste and algae—and unlike plastic, if it escapes into the ocean, a fish could likely eat it safely. The material, called MarinaTex, is the winner of this year’s James Dyson Award.

这种新式包装的样品看起来就像普通的塑料，但它实际上是用鱼的废料和藻类制成的，而且它不像塑料，如果它流入大海，鱼儿吃掉它完全没问题。这种名为MarinaTex的材料赢得了本年度詹姆斯·戴森设计大奖。

“It began with my desire to work with waste,” says Lucy Hughes, a recent graduate from the U.K.’s University of Sussex, who began developing the material as a student.

刚从英国苏塞克斯大学毕业的露西·休斯表示：“我想处理废料，于是开始了这项研究。”她从学生时代就开始开发这种材料。

Through a contact at the university, Hughes visited a fish processing plant to see the massive quantity of waste generated by the industry and find new ways to use it.

通过大学的接洽，休斯参观了一家水产加工厂，她了解到该行业产生了大量废料，她想找出利用这些废料的新方法。

She focused on fish skins and scales. “When I had it in my hands, I realized this has got potential,” she says. “It’s super strong and flexible and pliable.”

她把注意力放在了鱼皮和鱼鳞上。“当我拿着它的时候，我意识到它很有潜力，”她说。“它非常结实而且很柔韧。”

Hughes spent months experimenting with fish waste in her kitchen, running more than 100 experiments to find a binder and a process that could hold together the proteins in the fish skins and scales. “I had a lot of failed attempts—a lot of things either went too brittle or too gooey or somewhat moldy,” she says. She finally landed on a type of algae that can be locally sourced.

休斯花了几个月的时间在她的厨房里用鱼的废料做实验，她尝试了100多次来寻找把鱼皮和鱼鳞中的蛋白质粘合在一起的粘合剂和方法。“我失败了很多次，试过的材料要么太脆，要么太粘，还有的有点发霉，”她说道。最终她在当地找到了一种藻类。

The material can be used to replace oil-based plastic in packaging such as bags or the translucent windows used to show products in boxes. As her research continues, Hughes says that she’ll be studying how MarinaTex works as a barrier and how long it could be used to store food.

这种材料可以替代包装中的油基塑料，如袋子，或是用来展示盒子里的产品的半透明材料。修斯还在继续研究，她表示，她将研究如何把MarinaTex变成一种防护材料，以及用它来贮存食物可以存多久。

Unlike some “compostable” plastics, which need to be processed in an industrial composting facility to break down, the new material can break down in four to six weeks in a backyard compost bin.

这种新材料与那些需要在工业堆肥设施中进行分解处理的“可降解”塑料不同，把它放在后院的堆肥箱里，4~6周即可分解。

“All the ingredients are food-grade safe,” Hughes says. “So this degrades much like a piece of food would degrade.”

“所有的原料都是食品级的，很安全，”休斯说道。“所以它的降解就像食物降解一样。”

If it accidentally washed into the ocean and a turtle or fish ate it, it wouldn’t cause problems.

如果它不小心被冲进海里，被海龟或鱼吃掉了，也不会产生什么问题。

“I’ve yet to work out the nutritional value for fish,” she says. “But the core ingredients are proteins from fish and algae, so that’s already kind of the diet of a fish anyway.”

“我还没有算出它对鱼类的营养价值，”她说道。“但它的核心成分来自鱼类和藻类中的蛋白质，所以它也算是鱼类的一种饵料了。”