Recycled Silver

All of the pieces of jewelry on display here have discarded silver as their main material.

The mining of silver not only causes great damage to ecosystems; the extraction of precious metals means that miners have to expose themselves to the potential poisonous effects of mercury, cyanide and other chemicals. For such ecological and ethical reasons, some global jewelry brands have recently committed to using recycled silver and gold for jewelry making.See: Pandoragroup, Silver and Gold

Some Asian countries have a long history of recycling fine jewelry. In 1960s Taiwan, jewelry stores included showroom and workshop areas. Apart from buying premade jewelry, customers could communicate with the jewelry maker directly and have their jewelry custom-made. Customers would bring old gold jewelry to settle the payment, which store owners would melt down for reuse.

Nowadays, jewelry stores are often separate from workshops, but customers can still bring their gold or silver jewelry to the store and sell them for money. In Hong Kong, the “Specification of Competency Standards for Jewelry Industry” that is issued to employers and employees to identify their professional skills, includes the ability of jewelry studios to recycle and extract expensive metal.See Hong Kong Qualifications Framework, List of Specification of Competency Standards Clearly, aspects of what constitutes a “circular economy” apply to the use and reuse of precious metals and gemstones on the Asian jewelry market.

However, Ching Sze Yin, Cicy’s approach is new, as she largely preserves the shapes of the abandoned silver objects by breathing new life into dead stock through a few modifications and embellishments.