Thoughts on recycled metal
When it comes to jewellery, recycling (or rather reprocessing) has always been necessary, due to the value of the raw materials used, and as such it is a practice that has very little to commend it. Scraps of gold or silver have never gone to waste, they have been recycled over hundreds of years, simply […]
New materials in jewellery
In jewellery, innovation encompasses using non-traditional materials to create pieces that are non-standard, modern and capable of expanding the limits of expression of jewellery. This field of new possibilities is expanding ever more, and a huge variety of materials such as plastic, fabrics, ceramics or paper, among many others, are already being used. For these […]
Gold
Gold mining is linked to a wide range of serious environmental impacts and human rights violations. On the one hand, large-scale mining, which involves around 80% of world production, is noteworthy for the contamination of ecosystems and for the major repercussions it often has on local communities in countries of the global south, on a […]
Silver
Global demand for silver stands at around 30,000 tonnes/year, while it is growing in all sectors and less than 20% of this global demand can be supplied by recycling. This means new silver has to be mined to meet 80% of the demand. Ninety per cent of this silver that is newly mined each year […]
Diamonds
The illicit diamond trade has for years financed civil wars and human rights violations in countries such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, among others. It is estimated that 3.7 million people died in these wars in the 1980s and 1990s alone, while millions more were displaced. No wonder they are […]
Coloured gems
Coloured gemstones are found in more than 50 countries and there are more than 200 varieties. Unlike gold and diamond mining, nearly 80% of the world’s coloured gemstone production is ASM. These are small, inland or open-pit mines, often in remote locations, involving rudimentary methods and hand tools, with limited or no mechanisation. Approximately 90% […]
