Sea-friendly beach accessories

Tourism and Its Consequences: Threats to Coastal Ecosystems

The tourist season is connected with the negative impacts of human activity on coastal ecosystems. The total amount of microplastics in the Baltic Sea continues to increase and is likely to remain there forever. Even the activity of collecting seashells during this period is not without consequences. They are a fundamental building material for creating new shells, provide a substrate for marine plants, and are a source of calcium carbonate, essential for the marine ecosystem.

Biomaterial beach set from waste

The aim of the project was to act on a small scale to a local problem by encouraging people to become familiar with the impact of tourism on the environment. The project focused on the incidental abandonment of plastic accessories. Beach set consists of three sand molds and a shovel. The problem I am addressing is tourism, so I wanted the biomaterial I used to design the beach set to be related to it. I researched the waste left by Gdańsk restaurants in the city center and obtained mussel and oyster shells, as well as a crab shell, from a seafood restaurant after a busy tourist day. Shells used in biomaterial have been selected in specific proportions to achieve various color variations. The prototypes consist of mussel, oyster, and crab shells combined with gelatin, with potential for further development towards utilizing chitosan to enhance waterproofing properties. The biomaterial does not pollute beaches; when left behind, it decomposes on the shore without negative effects on the coastal ecosystem. The project exemplifies closed -loop design – shells sourced from the sea are returned to it.

Design Competition Highlights

Sea-friendly beach accessories reached the finals of the Young Design 2024 competition (April 2024) organized by the Institute of Industrial Design in Warsaw and received the INTERPRINT Polska Award in the Make Me! 2024 competition at the Łódź Design Festival. The "Sea-Friendly Beach Accessories" were a part of the "WASTE" project conducted in collaboration with the Product Design Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Gdańsk.