WHO: Ashley Heather
WHERE: South Africa
TECH INSPIRATION: Reclaimed precious metals from old electronic circuit boards

Ashley Heather is a small refinery located in South Africa that creates carefully hand-crafted jewelry from precious metals reclaimed from circuit boards. The artisans care about every aspect of the craft and are constantly striving for the most sustainable studio practices from the manufacturing processes right through to the packaging.

Ashley Heather crafts every piece using age old silversmithing techniques combined with contemporary designs pared down to their essential qualities. The simplicity of the designs allows the material, craftsmanship and the wearer to shine.

"I have always been inspired by both the majesty and understated beauty of this fragile blue green planet of ours. I believe in creating. I believe in quality. I believe in honesty to materials. I believe in doing things differently. I believe companies can do more, be more." - Ashley Heather

Urban Mining: from information technology to jewelry

It takes 245kg of fossil fuels, 22kgs of chemicals, and 1500 litres of water to manufacture one desktop computer.  Ultimately 80-85% of all electronic products are discarded in landfills or incinerators releasing toxins into the air and soil. Circuit boards rely on silver and gold for their excellent electrical conductivity. In the United States alone cell phones containing $60 million of gold and silver are dumped every year.

The Ashley Heather refining process begins with manually dismantling the waste electronic products. All the components are then sent their separate ways for recycling and the circuit boards are run through a shredder before being fed into the furnace. All the metals are collected as a sludge. The precious metals are separated and purified before being melted again in the final stage to ensure a pure, high quality material.