Recycling and repairs

When you sell jewellery made with recycled products, it is up to you to ensure that the articles are safe for consumers and do not, for example, contain restricted substances. 

If you manufacture articles of precious metals, remember that repaired and altered articles must also meet the requirements laid down for articles of precious metals.  

Repaired and altered articles of precious metals must have the mandatory marks, and the fineness mark must correspond to the article's precious metal fineness.

You may use the marks of the original article of precious metal if

  • the alterations are minor, such as resizing a ring
  • you are changing the intended use of the article of precious metal without making major alterations to it, such as bending an old silver spoon to make a bracelet

Remember that if you are carrying out the alteration work, you will be responsible for the alteration, not the responsibility mark holder who originally marked the article.

Consider the use of old marks carefully if

  • you take components from an old article of precious metal to use as material for a new article without melting down the old article and re-alloying the raw material
  • you use old articles of precious metals as raw material for new articles.

In these cases, the person responsible for the new articles' compliance is you, not the holder of the old responsibility mark. You must never use old marks in ways that could mislead consumers to think that the marks also apply to the new components of the article.  Transferring only the marks from an article of precious metal to another article is prohibited.

Remove old marks if

  • you use components from an old article to make a new one. Alternatively, you can leave the marks and make sure that the new article clearly indicates which component of the article the old marks refer to.

Re-mark

  • new components of repaired or altered articles with the appropriate marks
  • other metals added to old articles of precious metals with, for example, the word METAL or the chemical symbol for the metal used
  • unmarked parts of old articles if you use them as material for new articles of precious metals.