Can you recycle PMC?

**scooch** · 07-10-2009, 12:00 PM

Hello All,

I've unearthed some dodgy PMC creations I must have made about ten years ago!

Now if they were sterling pieces, I'd melt them down to reuse the metal, so I am wondering if there is anything that can be done to 'recycle' old or unwanted PMC pieces.

I mostly just work with sterling silver and wire now (I'm a chainmaille addict

), but I remember when PMC first arrived on the scene there seemed to be a bit of snobbery about it - like it was just a bit of a toy or novelty, and made jewellery creation too easy. These weren't opinions I shared but I did get put off using it by this kind of attitude. I can see that PMC has come a long way since it first came out, and some of the creations are just fantastic, but I wonder if any of you that use PMC think these attitudes are still out there?

Many thanks.
Scooch

**agent_44** · 07-10-2009, 12:08 PM

PMC is just fine silver once fired properly, so yes you can recycle it!

**scooch** · 07-10-2009, 01:12 PM

Alllright! there's a saving!

**Lindyloo** · 07-10-2009, 09:02 PM

So can you just add it to your sterling scrap or would you keep it separate?

**agent_44** · 07-10-2009, 09:14 PM

I'm not sure if you can mix metals in your scrap pot, I try to keep mine seperate but I did notice on my last return to Cooksons that they had paid me for some fine and some sterling, so I am assuming you can at least mix silver, but don't quite me on that! It is something I have wondered about though...

**Di Sandland** · 07-10-2009, 09:16 PM

well, if you put fine silver in with your sterling, it will reduce the purity of the fine and improve the purity of your sterling - so I imagine that the result will be of a non-specific purity?

**agent_44** · 07-10-2009, 09:48 PM

Well the credit note I got from cooksons where I managed to send them a mix had the weights of the quantity of the fine, with the scrap return price for that, and then the same for the sterling, so it seems they have a way of separating the two out.

**snow_imp** · 08-10-2009, 08:08 AM

A while back I emailed one of their scrap people and asked about mixing different silver scrap metals and they said it was fine to mix it all together. I assumed they had a way of sorting it out themselves from that.