Don't dump your old phone, turn it into glitzy gold jewellery instead Millions of tons of electronic waste is thrown away each year. London-based Lylie’s is salvaging metals from used devices and turning it into jewellery. Gold and silver are not only attractive, malleable metals for jewellery, but also excellent electrical conductors, resistant to rust, oxidation, and the majority of acids and bases – hence their prevalence in electronics. Yet while jewellery is treasured for generations, most electronic devices barely last two years before being discarded: a waste of material, time and energy – not to mention the environmental impact of mining new metals. Eliza Walter is giving those materials a second life. In October 2017 she started Lylie’s, a business dedicated to making jewellery from recycled metal – and gemstones recovered from old jewellery, or grown in labs.