Ghost Leash – A Dog Leash Made Of Ghost Net
The Ghost Leash is a dog leash made from 100% ghost net and waste fabric – plus a clip to secure your dog. The collection of raw materials and production of the ghost leashes is done in Pakistan by local fishing communities. Handcrafted by artisans, each dog leash is unique and may vary slightly in colour and design. We ship to you with no frills, labels or unnecessary packaging to minimise the shipping carbon footprint. All profits go back to the community.
The Ghost Leash Story
The ocean is full of discarded, lost and abandoned fishing nets – so called ghost nets. These ghost nets drift with the ocean currents for years, killing millions of marine animals, smothering corals reefs and dirtying beaches when they wash ashore.
Small fishing communities and ORP are fighting this menace by recovering ghost nets from the sea and beaches and re-purposing them.
Once recovered, we check the ghost nets for any entangled marine animals, which are rescued and released back into the ocean.
After clearing the ghost nets of marine animals, we move the recovered ghost nets to our storage facility – a hut made from plastic bottles filled with sand.
One by one, we pick the ghost nets clean by hand, soak and scrub them. We then leave them to dry in the sun.
Once the ghost nets are clean and dry, we separate and twist them into a strong rope-like material. This makes up the inside of the Ghost Leash. Each leash is made up of 81.5 square metres / 880 square feet ghost net.
We then cover the twisted ghost net in a sleeve made from waste textile. The sleeves are sewn on low carbon foot peddle machines in the village.
Finally, we wrap the textile-covered ghost net in waste thread to add a colourful finish with various designs. The Ghost Leash is 1.5 m / 5 feet long with a sturdy finish and good grip.
We ship the finished Ghost Leashes to you with no frills, labels or unnecessary packaging to minimise the shipping carbon footprint. All profits go back to the community.
Ghost Leash Details
The Production & Design
The Ghost Leas is made of 100% ghost nets and recycled materials, plus the clip. The ORP Pakistan team and volunteers recover the ghost nets used in the production of the Ghost Leash from the sea and beaches near Abdul Rehman Goth, a fishing village in Keamari Town in Karachi. The ghost nets are repurposed by the villagers; first the men clean and twist the nets into rope, and then the women stitch the fabric sleeves and wrap the Ghost Leash into the final product.
Designer Waqar J Khan overseas the design and production with ORP’s Asif Baloch. Waqar sources waste fabric and threads from local markets where textile waste from different factories is collected and sold. The clips are also sourced locally. Waqar has helped improve the design and production methods to lessen the labor required to produce each leach. As a result we have been able to scale up production.
A Circular Economy Project
Abdul Rehman Goth is a is a centuries-old fishing village. It has a population of around 2000 people and 300 fishing boats. Like so many traditional fishing communities, climate change, industrial fishing and over-fishing strongly affect this fishing community. ORP is working on ways to reuse ghost gear recovered in the area to provide an alternative income for the community. So far, volunteers have recovered 4 tons of ghost gear from the sea and beached near the village!
Whilst the men of the village may travel far away for work, the women are more restricted in terms of mobility due to lack of public transport. The design and sale of ghost net bracelets and dog leashes provide local work. Work that can provide a significant addition to the household income of a fisher family.
All profits from the sales of Ghost Leashes go back to the community.
