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From trash to glittering jewelry
Finishing touch: A craftsman fixes a gemstone on a piece of jewelry at the Silver 999 Jewelry workshop in Malang, East Java
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Finishing touch: A craftsman fixes a gemstone on a piece of jewelry at the Silver 999 Jewelry workshop in Malang, East Java.
The sounds of hammers and saws emerge from a house in Malang, East Java, blending with music in the background. Inside, four workers craft silver jewelry.
A show window in the house, which also serves as a gallery, displays various ornaments ' from rings, necklaces and earrings to bracelets.
The place, home of Silver 999 Jewelry since 2009, is not an ordinary jewelry maker ' it produces pieces from recycled metals coming from X-ray photo waste.
The jewelry's owners, Faisal Arifin and his wife, Wahyu Ratnasari, gathered the X-ray photo trash from several hospitals in Malang.
The materials are then recycled in the solid and liquid chemical waste-processing center owned by the Malang city administration.
In the process, plastic material in the waste is separated from its silver and copper contents in granule form.
A kilogram of X-ray waste can produce around 5 grams of silver and 2 grams of copper.
Faisal said silver was the basic material for jewelry and copper served as a gold alloy and ornament-soldering metal.
Silver granules are melted and molded into desired shapes for ornamental foundations. The entire jewelry-making process is manual work, involving designing intricate details to ensure they are difficult to imitate.
Faisal has trained his workers, who come from the neighborhood, step by step.
With the experience he gained while working in his uncle's jewelry business 10 years ago in the South Kalimantan town of Martapura, Faisal then set off on his own venture back in his hometown.
'I did not employ craftsmen from Martapura so I had to start everything from scratch by teaching jewelry-making to residents here,' said the 26-year-old.
It takes one to two weeks to produce an ornament, depending on the degree of intricacy of the motifs and the availability of materials or gemstones. Gold is already supplied by an East Java partner.
Faisal said Silver 999 promotes typical Malang designs, like lotuses and weaverbirds, by giving prominence to precious stones, including diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubies and pearls.
He said Silver 999 serves the designs chosen by consumers but the gallery retains its Malang models.
Foreign gemstones are derived from Ethiopia (especially opals), Madagascar and China, while local jewels come from Martapura, particularly diamonds and amethysts. The pearls come from Maluku.
The home industry mostly produces ornaments after receiving orders and is very rarely engaged in mass production.
'Every customer will get one exclusive jewelry design from us that won't be designed for other people,' said Ratnasari, who is in charge of marketing.
Most buyers of the ornaments, she said, come from Ethiopia, Holland, France and China, with selling prices starting from Rp 350,000 (US$30).
Faisal said overseas customers prefer Indonesian culture-based motifs whereas domestic buyers generally choose models used by foreign artists.
Faisal's jewelry products are certified by the Precious Stone Certification Institute (LPSB), with its head office in Martapura. His marketing relies on the Internet, exhibitions and ' most of all ' word of mouth.
Much of his work has been imitated by famous jewelry brands but Faisal did not budge, saying that he would continue to craft jewelry as long as the waste still provided materials for his glittering jewelry pieces.
'Let them use our designs, but our creative flair and quality style can never be duplicated,' he says.
- Photos by Aman Rochman
