Ethical jewellery from recycled electricals

Put simply ethical jewellery is made from materials and using processes that don’t put people or their rights at risk or damage the environment. Some precious materials commonly used to make jewellery – such as gold, silver, and palladium – are extracted at a cost to the natural environment and communities where they are found. Some of these materials are also used to make components in circuit boards in our personal tech and everyday appliances. So reusing and recycling electricals should help reduce the amount of new material being mined and ensure a more sustainable supply of these vital materials – as well as being kinder to the environment.

The Recycle Your Electricals campaign has created the ‘Five Gold Rings’ collection in partnership with British sustainable jeweller Lylie’s. The handcrafted pieces, made from gold and silver salvaged from old electrical items, are an eco-friendly option and represent the potential in recycling electrical items. If we’re being picky, this is ethical jewellery made from recycled materials, not recycled jewellery. But, like buying second-hand or vintage jewellery, opting for jewellery from recycled materials helps ease the pressure on the Earth’s precious resources.

Yes. There’s a thriving second-hand market for preloved electrical and electronic products. Our research shows that on average UK households could make £620 each by selling unwanted electricals they have lying around. Check out our page on selling your old electricals. And if you don’t want to sell them, but would like to let your unwanted electricals go to a good cause, see our guide to donating electricals to charities.

A single electrical appliance or device will contain tiny amounts of precious metals – but these are still critical to the functioning of things like circuit boards. Your old mobile phone, for example, will contain a fraction of 1 gram of gold. But put all our unwanted phones together and we’re talking tonnes of precious metals. If all the old electricals we hoard or throw away every year in the UK were recycled, we’d have enough gold to make rings for 18 months’ worth of weddings and civil partnerships. Check our locator for your nearest recycling drop-off or collection point.

“The answer is yes,” says sustainable jeweller Eliza Walter, who’s company Lylie’s has partnered with Recycle Your Electricals to make the ‘Five Gold Rings’ collection. “In many ways the jewellery we make is much more precious. Our high-quality, certified pieces are proof that one person’s trash can literally become someone else’s treasure. I’m passionate about helping people realise the potential that their electrical waste has.”

It’s not just ethical jewellery that can be made from recycled electricals. Our unwanted gadgets and appliances contain a range of metals and plastic materials that can be recovered and remanufactured into anything from bicycles to children’s swings to life-saving defibrillators.