We are NoWa. NoWa stands for No Waste. We create jewelry from gold and silver recycled from old telephones. That's right, from Trash to Treasure.
Jewelery is the ultimate means of communicating the value of waste. They almost always have an emotional value. Just think: when you get married, when someone dies, on a birthday, in honor of a friendship, always a special moment. A memory. Jewelry connects people - literally and figuratively.
That is why connection is central to all our collections. We are all connected (and no, not just through our phones ;). A genuine connection is what we all strive for. We are connected to ourselves, to each other and with a NoWa piece of jewelry a little extra to the earth.
“We believe in a world where everyone sees the value of e-waste, returns old electronics and all electronics are recycled in a sustainable way.”
Our partner, Closing the Loop, collects old telephones in Africa in order to recycle them properly in Europe and reuse the valuable materials.
When Josette, founder of NoWa, worked for Closing the Loop in 2015, she tried to turn the mobile phone into a waste-free product. At that time, Josette and her friend Joyce came up with the idea of making jewelery from the silver and gold from old phones collected by Closing the Loop in Africa.
A ton of e-waste contains sixty times as much gold as a ton of gold ore. It is also much easier to extract gold from e-waste than to extract gold from ore. It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the total world demand for rare metals can be met by urban mining. Yes, let that sink in for a moment!
For every piece of jewelery we sell, Closing the Loop, winner of the Circular Award 2018, collects discarded telephones from Africa. So you not only get a beautiful piece of jewelry, but you also contribute to less e-waste worldwide. Who would have thought wearing a piece of jewelry could feel so good?
Hundreds of millions of old telephones end up in landfills in Africa. A big problem, because these countries are not able to recycle the old telephones in a sustainable way. E-waste is incinerated and a lot of waste is released as a result. Bad for the population and the planet. That's why Closing The Loop collects these phones and ensures that they in Europa recycled as much as possible.
