Full Circle

Economics is not a subject that gets most pulses racing but adapting your life and your shopping habits to a Circular Economy every chance you get, will cost you less and cost the planet less. A Linear Economy, A to B to C, describes a journey with an ending in the rubbish bin. From idea to manufacture, to purchase, to use and end of use, products in a linear economy are used and thrown away. A Circular Economy delays the moment of throwing things away as long as possible by encouraging re-use, re-purposing and even after that ‘in the bin’ moment, a Circular Economy still encourages recycling and repurposing. Working with metal means that Made by the Forge is operating within a Circular Economy.

At the heart of Made by the Forge’s business is ironwork. At the start of the circle, metal is fashioned into superior products that have a lifetime guarantee. The fact that the items will last you for life and you won’t have to buy them again is reassuring of course but it goes further than that. If you moved house and you decided to take all your curtain poles and kitchen rails with you, you could. All of them could be used again and would not have deteriorated, except for a little wear and tear but that is easily rectified.

At some point in time your ironwork might become someone else's and they would benefit, an heirloom of sorts. These pieces are meant to last forever after all. But in the longer term, should they be discarded, the ironwork would start its journey as part of ten million tonnes of scrap metal every year produced in the UK, metal that is sifted and separated and melted down then modified and returned into circulation to be made into something else. There is nothing quite as long lasting, useful and malleable as metal when it comes to recycling and reusing. So our ironwork process is circular and is part of a Circular Economy. Earth is a fragile and finite resource. A Circular Economy aims to do three things;

1. Eliminate waste and pollution as much as possible
2. Circulate products and materials
3. Regenerate nature

It took many years for people to realise that a healthy natural environment is good for us and good for the planet. Be part of that circle. If any of our products are no longer required, we offer a take back service. We would then give the products a transformative makeover and  repurpose and re-use where possible to keep them in circulation indefinitely.

The phrase ‘going round in circles’ means being engaged in fruitless activity and always returning to the same point in the process. We should start to take that phrase back, recycle it if you will, refashion it to mean ‘urgently needed, healthy activity for the manufacturer, the consumer and primarily the planet itself.’