On a certain day in June, a crucial meeting was held in the Tokyo Paper Products Conference Room…

Slowly, items were placed on the table. They were things that seemed quite out of place for this company: “fishing hooks.”

Indeed… Tokyo Shiki was attempting to make “fishing hooks” out of paper.

This is a record of the efforts of a paper processing company (!) striving to create a new “fishing hook” for the era of SDGs.

The beginning of the story goes like this…

In May of last year, a new project was launched at our company.

Since its opening last year, our paper clip specialty site “CLI-LAB (https://cli-lab.jp/)” has been well-received by our customers.

On this site, it’s possible to create various novelty items using vulcanized fiber, a paper material that serves as an alternative to plastic.

The project aimed to explore new uses for vulcanized fiber by soliciting ideas and then attempting to realize those ideas.

Innovative Ideas

As a result, three ideas made it to the final selection, but the one that the president was most enthusiastic about was the idea of a “fishing hook that decomposes naturally after its job is done.”

Indeed, since fishing hooks are normally made from materials that do not decompose, the concept of a biodegradable hook is environmentally friendly. Moreover, the idea of using paper material for fishing, which inherently involves immersion in water, seems entirely novel.

Our company’s motto is “Turning ideas into reality.” It’s an idea worth taking on a challenge for.

Towards Prototyping

We measured the dimensions of the brought fishing hooks and began creating data based on those measurements.

Since the fishing hooks are not large, it seems possible to fit quite a number of them on a sheet of vulcanized fiber. For now, we decided to prototype with thicknesses of 0.8mm and 1.0mm.

There are several colors to choose from, but we decided on white, black, and gray. It’s possible that, similar to lures, the color might affect how well the fish bite.

Now, how did it turn out…?

So, the prototype fishing hooks have been made. They turned out more hook-like than expected. Now, the question is whether they can hook fish and if they can hold up when they do.

Since there’s likely to be a significant loss, we’ve prepared plenty of spares, ready to put them to the test!

Next time, the true capability of the fiber fishing hooks will be tested!

Here is the continuation of the article.

Kept you waiting (too long)! “Vulcanized Fiber Fishing Hooks” (2)