March Meet The Maker - Decision…

Earlier last year I made quite a big decision…to only work with metals that I know have definitely been recycled from old jewellery.

“Recycled” gold and silver that carried that badge has been available to buy from bullion dealers for many years now, and I was buying that metal, just accepting that it was actually 100% recycled.

However, there’s currently no checks in place to make sure that newly mined metal doesn’t get into that supply chain, and having discovered that fact, I just couldn’t carry on using it and claim that the jewellery I make is genuinely “recycled”.

As a certified B Corp, I’ve had to go through many verification checks and provide evidence that my business is meeting high quality environmental and social standards. They’re not experts in my industry though and although they were happy that I was buying my metal from a company that badged their metals as recycled, I needed to go further.

B Corp have just announced a whole set of new standards, and I’ll soon be starting the process of recertification based on these. My decision to only use metal that I know has come from old jewellery hasn’t been made to get me extra B Corp brownie points, but as we all start to learn more, I’m hoping that there’s a bit more scrutiny/understanding of jewellery supply chain this time around.

I do also hope that this decision can be a temporary one, and that in the future, legislation is put in place to ensure that gold and silver sold as “recycled” is actually 100% post consumer metal.

Until that day comes though, the jewellery I now make, is only done so using old jewellery that I’ve recycled and processed myself, in my own studio.