Suppliers for reclaimed silver?

You're over simplifying the entire matter. Precious metals that have been recovered can't usually be directly melted and reused without problems. They tend to get contaminated with elements that destroy their properties, or the base metals get oxidized from repeated melting, creating porosity in the end product. You can conclude that recycling such materials improperly renders them pretty much useless for the intended purpose. In order to make sterling that will roll and draw, the silver in question should be refined upon recovery. Thus, the material you seek comes from major refiners, so it's safe to conclude that the sterling you buy from any supply house has a percentage of recycled silver included. Having refined precious metals for years and having seen the problems created by dirty recycled material, I'd suggest you avoid anyone that makes alloys with recycled metals unless they've been properly refined.

Harold

Well said, Harold. Just want to chime in - most metals you buy could be considered "green" since metal recycling has been going on for centuries. Your car battery could easily contain lead from the old Roman aqueduct, for example.

GWE

May, you say? I'd say it most assuredly has, and not only one. Water isn't new---it's been on the planet for billions of years and has managed to get anywhere and everywhere.

Harold

Most metals we buy have been ripped violently from the ground leaving a variety of toxic byproducts and environmental damaging. Certainly recycling has been going on since the second smelt ever done by man. But the mines are still going strong and I can't find what should be a readily available product. We as consumers have an obligation to demand eco-friendly materials. We can not be blind to the damage we are causing every time we pick up the phone to order supplies. I've been amazed that I can't even get info on what mines/refineries different suppliers use. Some mines at least make an effort to have cleaner mining processes. If we must support a mine, wouldn't it be great to use one that is less polluting?

Every bit of Uranium ore mined in Utah, and sent to a refining plant for the nuclear industry has benefited the environment (in Utah). Every ounce of lead or cinnabar mined is cleaning up the environment from heavy metals. :)

cheers T.Alan

Unless you're prepared to not use these products, you simply have to learn to live with the consequences of their extraction. It's unreasonable to expect that we can live with that which has already been extracted alone. Were it not for new extraction, there wouldn't be enough silver to fill the need in industry. That's been true since 1952, although since the advent of electronic photography and coinage made of nickel instead of silver, the load may have been significantly reduced.

Here's a perfect opportunity for you to live up to your handle (RationalAnimal). Quit buying wood, gasoline, heating oil and pretty much everything you can imagine. The production of almost everything has an impact on the environment, right down to those carrots you have in your fridge. I think you'll come to understand that you are anything but rational-----or you're a hypocrite, expecting the other guy to bite the bullet while you go about your business of over consuming.

Harold

Whoa Chief! You are calling me a hypocrite and you don't know the first thing about me. What is wrong with you? There was no personal hostility in my posts. So to your thinking we have no need to conserve resources at all. Its jerks like you that leave me worried for the condition the world when my child grows up. I limit my use of fossil fuels. My wife and I bought a house in need of renovation. We installed bamboo floors (renewable in a couple of years, not decades). We updated the heating system although the old one worked. We did this again to limit consumption. I make an effort every day and try to teach my child to do the same. Of course even carrot production has an impact on the environment, but hey guy, buy organic and you will have less pesticide in your drinking water. Get it? No, clearly you don't.

Note to Rational Animal:

Take an organic bite out of my ass.

Ok, so you don't know him yet it is ok for you to call him a jerk??, he didn't call you a hyporcite, just said you could become one.. the choice is up to you... oh the hell with it, talking to your type is useless... here's something.

Do the world a favor and cleanse yourself from the gene pool before you manage to reproduce.

What a warm fuzzy eco-friendly self riteous rationalizing pile of hokey CRAP!

Look long at the chemistry involved in recycling metals before announcing to all and sundry that they are any better than the same chemicals being used to extract the metals in the first place.

Wanna save the world from the stuff? Stay right away from using the materials in the first place, otherwise, accept that all comes at a cost. The refiners plug the recyled metals right back into their product stream, alloying it to workable metal and mixing it with new as required. They have been doing so since metals became useful for tools and adornment, and they will continue to do so.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Chuckle!

Couldn't have said it better myself. Depending on the nature of the ore, it's entirely possible there are no chemicals involved in mining and extraction. It's when it gets down to refining that the chemicals become important. High grade ores are mined, hauled to a floatation plant, where they are pulverized and run through the floatation process to concentrate the values, then smelted. It's the low grade stuff that's extracted with cyanide that might be of concern. Even then, such operations are closely monitored (what ever that means) and it's not generally a problem. Otherwise you'd hear of the multiple unexplained deaths of people and wild life. Haven't seen much about that on the news of late in our area-----can't speak for his.

I already alluded to that, Trevor, and was rewarded with the wrath of this "gent" (a term I use very loosely). He doesn't have a clue-----he's too busy trying to be Mr. Green.

And he calls me a jerk? That, indeed, is a good one!

If he was so concerned about this subject, he'd not be seeking to buy any of those ecology destroying metals------but instead wants to cleanse his conscience by pretending that buying recycled materials in some magical way justifies his greed. Yeah, I think I know him pretty well. Need I say more?

Harold

On 13 Feb 2007 16:12:39 -0800 in rec.crafts.metalworking, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote,

If it turns "green" there is too much copper in it.

Scrap is just high-grade ore.

That person's kind of thinking isn't unique though. I had a long, (well it would have been long) conversation with an enthusiastic but clueless fellow about the oil sands deposits in Canada. His POV was that somehow, they were polluting vast swaths of untouched wilderness in Canada with oil. I pointed out that the whole goal of the project is to _extract_, rather than to _consume_ oil, and that the sand is by definition cleaner when they're done with it. For some reason that completely evaded his ability to understand. Maybe it's an extension of the "It's _all natural_ so it must be healthy" thinking. Poison Ivy is all natural too...

Best way to save the planet is to leave.

In the little he has written, I have no trouble at all figuring him for the type that thinks he will make the world better by buying a Hybrid SUV to haul himself down to the corner store to pick up milk.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Good for you. Keep it up! Doing it is far more laudable than preaching it.

Might your quest for silver have something to do with adornment and vanity rather than e.g. electrical contacts? If so, might brightly-colored beads made with vegetable dyes be more ecologically responsible?

Uprooting defenseless vegetables, for superficial self adornment, how disgusting.