Most jewellery sustainability claims cover the main metal and quietly ignore everything else. Findings, plating and stones are where the gaps usually are.
Silver
Recycled sterling — 92.5% silver, 7.5% copper. Sourced through refiners handling post-consumer and industrial scrap. See recycled silver for what that claim should mean and how to test it.
Gold plating
Gold-plated pieces are recycled sterling with a gold layer applied by electroplating. Plating thickness is measured in microns and it matters: thin plating wears through at contact points within months. Vermeil is a regulated term in some markets requiring a minimum thickness over sterling; "gold plated" on its own is not regulated and can mean almost nothing.
| Term | Typical meaning | Durability |
|---|---|---|
| Gold flash / gold wash | Under 0.5 micron | Weeks to months |
| Gold plated | Unregulated, often 0.5-1 micron | Variable |
| Vermeil | Sterling base, thicker layer | Years with care |
Pearls
Freshwater cultured pearls, including Biwa-style baroque shapes. Cultured is not a lesser category — effectively all pearls on the market are cultured, and have been for a century. Shape irregularity in baroque pearls is natural variation, not a defect.
Findings
Ear wires, clasps, jump rings. These are the components most often bought in bulk from unspecified sources, even by brands with strong claims about their main metal. Ours are sterling where the design allows it, and we say so where they are not — nickel-free stainless is used in some ear fittings for wear resistance, and that is a deliberate trade-off rather than an oversight.
What we cannot verify
Chain of custody in silver refining is genuinely difficult to trace to origin, because recycled feedstock is aggregated by definition. We can name our refiner and their standard. We cannot tell you which specific object your silver used to be, and neither can anyone else who claims to.