Is eco-friendly jewellery really possible?

The first thing we had to do was to see whether it was really viable to design jewellery in a style that I wanted and achieve a low environmental impact. There are a huge number of issues to consider such as materials, transportation, recyclability and of course aesthetics, quality and price. We found a number of potential options, but decided to design our first range of jewellery from recycled glass because it seems to provides the optimum balance between the various criteria. It is produced from waste material, is durable and highly attractive, and is also fully recyclable at end of life. The only downside is that as yet we haven't found anywhere in Europe that can produce high quality glass beads from recycled material. We found this very frustrating, but it taught us a valuable lesson, that although we are striving for perfection, we will have to make a few compromises along way. If we are ever to get our project off the ground we will have to do the best we can to start off, and then work to improve on our areas of weakness as the business develops.

In the short term we have found an excellent business in Indonesia that makes recycled glass beads from household waste and also produces some really nice wooden beads from scrap wood, which apart from the long transportation distances is exactly what we are looking for.

We wanted to use organic hemp as the cord for our necklaces and bracelets and found what seemed to be the perfect supplier in Romania but after weeks of communication we found that their service was not dependable enough to base our business around and when we finally received some samples the quality was terrible. We knew that there was no way that we could use it to make jewellery and had to look for alternatives. So far the only material we have found with the required appearance and quality is waxed cotton cord, which is at least natural and biodegradable. We need to do a bit more research if we are going to use cotton cord, if only to find out what the wax is made of, because this will affect whether or not the products are suitable for vegans. However, we do really want to find an organic cord or some sort of eco-friendly alternative.

There at least seem to be some options with the beads and cord, but eco-friendly findings seem to be virtually nonexistent. What we actually ended up doing is solving the problem a different way by completely designing the findings out of the necklaces and bracelets. That way, the only findings that we need are earring hooks, which will probably be made from stainless steel.

We'll be trying to constantly reduce the environmental impact of our jewellery, so if you have any ideas or suggestions, or know of any good materials or suppliers that we should investigate then we are really keen to hear from you.