How MEA celebrates Earth Day, everyday
A core value to Meghan Elisabeth Art (MEA) is sustainability.
This is a personal passion point for me, because I spend so much of my time in the outdoors. I live on the road full-time visiting and experiencing the natural sites this world has to offer, so of course protecting the environment and sustaining these incredible areas is top of mind. This is why it is so important for me to incorporate sustainability into my business, Meghan Elisabeth Art.
I know small businesses are not the biggest problem — but small actions add up! So how does MEA as a business help protect our earth and limit our environmental impact?
MEA is slow fashion that is quality + built to last
Our materials are sourced as locally + ethically as possible
All scrap material is recycled
MEA packaging is recyclable + optional at checkout
Let’s get into the details —
Slow fashion that’s built to last
We all know how detrimental to the earth and wasteful fast fashion is (if you don’t, here’s an article about it)! With jewelry, this looks like cheap materials that turn your skin green, earrings that fall apart after just a few wears, or metals that change color over time.
Meghan Elisabeth Art jewelry is the polar opposite. Each piece is made slowly, by hand, with quality materials. I build these pieces to last and be adored for decades to come. Each piece is made with sterling silver — a quality, strong metal that is not plated and will not irritate your ears or turn them green. As long as you don’t need surgical steel or pure gold to keep your ears from irritation, your ears will be happy with sterling silver! All of the jump rings in MEA pieces are also soldered closed, so a good tug on an earring won’t split it in two. This takes extra time, but it brings the quality from mediocre to high!
MEA jewelry is not made for the landfill. Every piece is meant to be worn and passed down, so even if your MEA piece breaks, we’ll repair it for you (check out this page for more information on repairs).
Materials + where we source them
Metal and stone mining is damaging to the earth. There is no way around that.
The two main natural stones I use in my work are agates and turquoise. Turquoise can be mined naturally by hand but modern practices of mining turquoise is done through explosives which is far more disruptive to the environment.
The majority of the turquoise MEA uses is mined in the southwestern United States where many of the mines are small-scale or part of a larger copper mining operation. Smaller scale operations are not sustainable, but they are less detrimental to the surrounding landscape than larger operations. The green and blue coloring of turquoise comes from copper, so turquoise mines often are next to large copper mines and therefore are a secondary product of the established mine.
Agates are “mined” through soil picking, so there is less disruption to the earth than turquoise. Majority of the agates I use are found in Oregon and Montana as well, so these stones are extremely local to my home base of Seattle, Washington!
This year I was fortunate enough to travel to the Tucson Gem Show where I met and connected with a handful of small businesses based in New Mexico. These businesses were either those who directly mined turquoise, or sourced the turquoise from out-of-state or country mines and stabilized and cut them in-house. With these businesses being based in the southwestern United States and many of the stones they cut and sell being mined in this area as well, the shipping distance, and therefore emissions produced, are drastically reduced.
Beyond the stones, all MEA pieces are make from solid sterling silver. Sterling silver is an alloy of 92.5% silver and (typically) copper. This makes sterling silver extremely strong whereas silver on it’s own is far too delicate for jewelry! As much as possible, I purchase recycled sterling silver sheet metal and wire.
recycling scraps + reducing waste
To reduce MEA’s silver mining impact, I collect all metal scraps and dust made while creating each MEA piece and recycle that material! Some of these scraps are turned into embellishments like beads or balls in finished designs, but the rest is saved to be melted down and recycled.
Stones also sometime break when they are being set or are not high enough quality to be made into a finished piece. These stones are saved to be crushed and set as inlay designs!
Recycled + optional Packaging
Packaging is the easiest area for small businesses to cut down on our waste production. Aside from the polaroid of our travels that comes with every order, all MEA packaging is plastic free and recyclable, and our mailers are 100% post-consumer recycled.
If you’re a repeat customer or aren’t in need of another sticker, you can also choose the “basic packaging” option at checkout. This reduces the packaging from a business card, sticker, polaroid, and a jewelry box + card to the basic necessities to keep your piece safe in transit. This brings the packaging down to just the jewelry box and card to keep your piece in place + safe!
So there you have it: the four ways MEA celebrates Earth Day, everyday!
Thanks for the read +
Happy Earth Day!
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