There's gold in that there dust!

Gratuitous picture of gold - although this is a story about gold...

We bought a new house last December in Cheltenham in the UK from an old couple who had begun to find the place a bit hard to manage. The husband was an amateur jewellery making expert and worked out of this room.

Messy!

Before the old boy finally kissed goodbye to his home of more than 40 years and after his tribe of children and grandchildren had cleared the decades of clutter, he gave his workshop a sweep. As one does. He then trotted down to his gold supplier who sifted through the dust before handing over 400 whopping quid to our happy homeseller. For dust! Or, I suppose, the miniscule shavings of gold therein...

So it didn't come entirely as a surprise to read last weekend that Britain's recycling industry now generates more than £10 billion in sales a year and employs more than 30,000 people.

What's more, we Brits have gone from recycling just 7.5% of household waste in 1995 to 42.5%  in 2012. Even more gobsmacking is that we now recycle more household waste than we send to landfill.

My last astonishing factoid, which brings me full circle back to gold, is that it's possible to extract more pure gold from a tonne of electrical waste than from a tonne of unprocessed gold ore. Although I understand it's a tricky process involving lethal acids - so don't try it at home!

 

Six gorgeous gift ideas for May

Six wonderful gift ideas from people featured on the blog this month. I've drooled over their work - now it's your turn! And, another plus, they are all made from recycled, vintage or ethically sourced materials.

Presenting - in no particular order of preference:

Rodology's Lady Emily Pendant £16.00

Grace Lane's A Threadbare Production Animal Figures
£170-£200

Amy Bluett, Fabric Bag £11.00

Sherie Cordaz - pendant $20-$25

Judson Jennings "All Forked Up" $27.49

Vevian - "Emily" shoes £89.00

The lady that inspired "Love It Back"

Sherie Cordaz

In summer 2013, my husband Nick and I and our two boys Edmund 17, and Toby 13, were on holiday in a sweltering New York. One day we visited the High Line, a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan's West Side. In the shade of a railway arch, Sherie Cordaz sat at a stall selling handmade pendants and earrings made using her own original photography, discarded wood and small amounts of sterling silver. They were exquisite and sold under the company name of "Shoosh". Below is the one I bought and I wear it frequently.

I can't say that I had a damascene moment as I stood in the railway arch but the fact that Sherie spoke as enthusiastically about using discarded wood to make her jewellery as she did about her own photography stayed with me. A seed was sown.....and by the end of our American holiday I was wondering what else there was to discover about a craft where recycled materials are so imaginatively used.  So, Sherie, thank you - because you started me off down this fascinating path.