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Gold and silver are not only attractive, malleable metals for jewellery, but also excellent electrical conductors, resistant to rust, oxidation, and the majority of acids and bases – hence their prevalence in electronics. Yet while jewellery is treasured for generations, most electronic devices barely last two years before being discarded: a waste of material, time and energy – not to mention the environmental impact of mining new metals.
Eliza Walter is giving those materials a second life. Born in Lincolnshire 25 years ago, she started making jewellery as a teenager, and went on to train and work in Hatton Garden and Bond Street – the heart of London’s jewellery industry. In October 2017 she started Lylie’s, a business dedicated to making jewellery from recycled metal – and gemstones recovered from old jewellery, or grown in labs.
“I had been told about the precious metals used in electronics since I was 15, so it was a very long process of developing the idea,” Walter explains.
Although Walter will not disclose how she sources her materials, there are two main ways of recovering precious metals from e-waste. One involves using acids and other chemicals to dissolve the devices and separate the gold. The other method uses heat – applied by a furnace or an electric arc. This melts the metals, and burns away other materials, leaving a liquid mixture of gold, silver and other metals for later separation.
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The gold yield from e-waste is quite small: only about 270 grams per tonne of devices. It is also costly, but Walter sells her stock at a reduced margin to compensate.
Precious metals can be recycled about five times, as they grow brittler with each reuse. The gold Walter works with has been used once already, so when she casts the molten metal into shape, there is a slightly lower success rate – 80 per cent, in contrast to 95 per cent for new gold. There is also a slight colour difference between recycled and virgin gold: the former is slightly more yellow – but since gold already has plenty of natural colour difference, this is not something the average buyer will notice.
Five years ago Walter first researched people's feelings on recycled jewellery, and reactions were mixed. “Most people I asked suggested that, when buying jewellery for themselves, it wouldn't matter. But for really significant pieces of jewellery, particularly engagement rings, it would be off-putting to them.”
“Attitudes are [now] changing about that, particularly among millennials,” she says. “People are much more aware of what they're consuming.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
