The name mum draws on the idea of the sea as a mother in Japanese culture: a source of life from which food and materials are received as gifts rather than extracted as resources. Surrounded by the sea, Japan has long understood the ocean in this way, and this perspective frames the project’s approach to ocean plastic. In the context of the Anthropocene, ocean plastic is now embedded in ecological systems and cannot be fully removed; it has become part of a “new nature”. Taking this as its starting point, the project asks how design might engage with materials that have become part of a changed natural environment, treating them not only as pollution but as something to be worked with rather than simply eliminated. The project focuses on the by-products of the fishing industry. Nets, ropes and buoys are often damaged, lost at sea or discarded after use. Working directly with fishing communities in Mie, the studio and REMARE collected this gear and reprocessed it while preserving its character. The project approaches these by-products as materials received from the sea alongside the food it provides. The dining table connects the two, bringing the industry’s material by-products to the place where seafood is eaten. As an object associated with eating fish, the table becomes a point where the sea, the fishing industry and its by-products meet. Its surface carries a wave-like texture formed through the recycling process. Traces of salt, weathering and use become part of its expression, while the dark colour of the old gear produces a deep, glossy finish that recalls the depths of the sea. Each surface is different, its form shaped by the material’s natural behaviour and the traces of its previous life rather than fixed in advance. In this way, mum reflects an understanding of nature as something dynamic and unstable. By working with what already exists, mum recognises discarded gear as part of an evolving landscape. These materials become a starting point for design and, in this sense, a gift from a transformed sea.