Here at A Silver Circle, we are extremely conscious of the impact that our business has on the environment. Even though we are not perfect, we’d like to share with you some everyday things we do in the studio to reduce our impact. We believe a thousand people doing an imperfect job is better than one person doing it alone.
We’ve broken down our eco-friendly practices into a few categories so you can learn more about what sustainable actions we are taking and how you can also contribute.
MATERIALS
Not many people are aware of the lack of sustainability around silver jewellery products. Like the mining of any other metal, silver mining is having a destructive impact on our environment through greenhouse gas emission; not to mention the large amount of metals being thrown away each year through old mobile phones. We are working hard to combat this waste of precious resources to create more sustainable jewellery through every step of our creative process.
We start by using recycled sterling silver for ALL of our pieces. Unused silver is melted down and remade into wire or sheet metal that can then used to construct new forms and designs. Any offcuts from our new designs are again recycled by being melted down again to be reused. So there is virtually no wastage of this beautiful precious material.
Here at ASC we love to experiment with recycled materials as seen through our Branch Collection (Check out our Branch Pendant) and former Computer Chip collection. We also love adding sustainably sourced stones in our collection like in our Amazonite Ring. As much as we love our colourful Resin Collection, we have unfortunately had to discontinue this as unfortunately this is not a sustainable material. We look forward to finding other colourful sustainable materials for our future pieces.
STUDIO PRACTICES
In the studio we are all about reduce, reuse and recycle.
Reduce: We have been taking steps to reduce the amount of plastic and other materials that come into the studio as much as possible: through buying bulk and staying clear of plastic foods, asking suppliers for less packaging and picking up things instead of shipping. Every year, 6.5 million tonnes of business waste is going to landfill across Australia, so it’s really important that we all take little steps every day to make a bigger impact in the long run.
Reuse: While Australia have made some steps towards reducing single-use plastic, we still use around 3.3 billion plastic bags a year. We don’t want to contribute to this statistic, therefore we reuse absolutely everything we can! Firstly we start within our studio- seeing a lot of our materials still come in plastic sealed bags, we reuse them for holding stock or Corinne’s students’ work to prevent tarnished. Lastly, we ensure that all boxes we receive are repurposed by using them to ship new orders to you.
Recycling: The bags mentioned above are reused over and over until they are no longer useful- then they get recycled in our Recycle bin in the studio and dropped off to our local supermarket for recycling. While plastic and packaging recycling in Australia is well established, still only 14% of plastic is recovered for recycling. Clearly we would love this number to increase, so all of our business practices will be carried out with this goal in mind.
Composting: Our studio is in an industrial area, so there is no outdoor space for us to use as a lovely worm farm, however we have an Urban Composter, which means we can compost all of our food scraps in the studio and drop it off to an established worm farm in the local area (you could find some in your area through Sharewaste) to then be broken down fully and reused. Composting is such a simple and rewarding process that we care a lot about as it keeps as much as 30% of waste from going into the bin. If you ever stumble into our workshop, you’ll probably notice the incredible amounts of tea consumed on a daily basis. That’s why we strive to use loose leaf teas and faze out all use of tea bags. Although these are small decisions, they are also important ones.
ONE TREE PLANTED
We are taking the initiative to give back to the planet by planting one tree for every sale made in person or online. We are inspired by One Tree Planted: an initiative that is planting trees in areas of deforestation around the globe to combat this increasingly severe problem. As we’ve seen with the Amazon Rainforest fires, drastic amounts of land and vegetation are being burnt as a result of climate change and deforestation.
We look forward to being able to contribute to helping our environment recover from years of damage and hope you are eager to get on board too! If you want to further support this cause, you can check our their website here: https://onetreeplanted.org
SHIPPING
Setting goals to reduce our carbon footprint is critical for us to become the business we have always aspired to be! Being environmentally conscious though our shipping of orders is very important to us and something we are continually striving to do better in.
All of our regular post orders use compostable bags or cardboard boxes as they are easily reused or recycled. Some boxes or packing material are recycled from other deliveries we have recieved. All our jewellery and other accessories are stored in previously used boxes to ensure we get the most use out of them as possible. We are continually working on a means of express-posting orders plastic free, so bear with us in the meantime!
Packaging: Our boxes, paper bags and carry bags are all cardboard so that they can be recycled or composted (ripped up into small pieces). They do however have a foam insert which are not currently recyclable but we are looking into a better alternative. This is where we would love to hear from you! If you have any great ideas please let us know as we are always welcoming suggestions to make our business more environmentally conscious everyday.
We are doing everything we can to work towards being completely zero-waste and we hope others will follow our lead. By shopping with us, you can be sure your purchases are sustainable and are in fact having a positive impact on the environment.
We would love to hear from you! What sustainable brands do you love? Do you have any tips on achieving more everyday sustainability? Please get in touch with us through Facebook or Instagram via the links below:
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