The block was created during a machining test, which led the manufacturer to plan to install his own solar furnace.

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This month, a piece of steel will be added to the collection of the International Watch and Clock Museum (Musée International d'Horlogerie), which is operated by the watchmaking city of La Chaux-de-Fonds and is located in what Swiss tourism authorities call the Valley of Watches.

For the untrained, this neighborhood may be a minimalist sculpture, an archaeological find, or a polished meteorite that mysteriously fell to the earth.

But it is pure AISI 316L stainless steel—"the world's first recycled steel block composed entirely of debris collected in Watch Valley and melted using solar energy," said Raphaël Broye, owner of Panatere, a manufacturer of watch components And the steel recycling business is located in nearby Saignelégier.

The steel produced last year will be displayed alongside legendary figures such as Antide Janvier and Abraham-Louis Breguet, as well as watchmaking memorabilia and vintage timepieces, because it is “a key evolution in the new era of recycled materials in watchmaking,” Nathalie Marielloni said. Assistant curator.

The chips were collected from Panatere's production facility and about 40 other companies-watchmakers or medical supplies manufacturers, all within a radius of 50 kilometers or 30 miles from Saignelégier-and then melted in a solar furnace in Mount Louise . South of France.

"This is an experimental test to see if we can use solar energy to melt steel," Mr. Broyer said.

Beginning in September, Panatere intends to eliminate the ecological cost of traveling to France by using the solar furnace it plans to install in Watch Valley, which was developed in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. "This will be the world's first solar industrial furnace that can melt steel without fuel or electricity," Mr. Broyer said.

The furnace is 9.5 meters high and 15 meters wide, approximately 30 feet by 50 feet, and relies on mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a small diameter area called a receiver, which generates up to 7,230 degrees Fahrenheit, or 4,000 degrees Celsius. Steel made of carbon and iron melts at temperatures above 2,730 degrees Fahrenheit or 1,500 degrees Celsius. Stainless steels including chromium, nickel, manganese, and copper have the same melting temperature.

"Very few people understand the power of concentrated solar energy," Mr. Broyer said, adding that it can melt a piece of steel as thick as 1.5 centimeters or half an inch in three seconds.

After the solar furnace is put into use, it will help Mr. Broye achieve another goal: to create a circular economy model-collecting garbage and turning it into reusable raw materials, all of which are done in a concentrated geographic area. "What we want to do is the opposite of globalization," he said.

Although Swiss watch brands often notice that their products run on clean kinetic energy and can last for centuries, the industry itself is not exemplary in terms of sustainability. In 2018, a report issued by the Swiss branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature analyzed its so-called "environmental management" of 15 major watch companies, and concluded that more sound management is needed.

The report stated: "There are significant gaps in the procurement and use of sustainable raw materials, the formulation of forward-looking strategies and goals, and the provision of greater transparency in this highly confidential industry."

But now, many watch brands, such as Panerai, launched their Submersible eLAB-ID in April, made with 98.6% recycled materials, and are promoting their extensive use of recycled materials.

Panatere has been working with ID Genève, a watch brand established in 2020, in a pilot project. It provides a recycled stainless steel case for the brand's Circular 1 model, and the strap and packaging are made of compostable materials.

"We also have the interest of two large watchmaking groups, but they prefer to announce it themselves," Mr. Broyer said, although he pointed out that the luxury industry actually uses very little steel in total.

"To produce 200,000 watches, we need 50 tons of stainless steel," he said. "In a traditional industrial furnace, it only takes 14 minutes to produce this quantity."

Mr. Broye is a mechanical engineer who acquired Panatere, a supplier of assembled watches and Swiss-made components ten years ago. It now has 40 employees.

A recurring problem with the company's steel procurement led to the idea of ​​producing recycled steel locally. “The steel we buy is imported from Shenzhen,” a manufacturing city in southeastern China. “It often has defects that cannot be repaired during the polishing process,” Mr. Broyer said.

In addition, the wood shavings “are sent back to China for recycling, which means that the steel we use will travel multiple times around the world,” he said. "That doesn't make sense."

For some time, steel sports watches have been popular. For example, in 2020, Switzerland exported 13.78 billion watches, of which more than half (8.442 billion) were steel watches.

The steel used in watchmaking is made into 3-meter-long steel ingots or steel ingots, which are processed into smaller pieces, which are then cut, polished and made into watch cases, bracelets or buckles.

This process will generate waste, and Mr. Broye and his local partners are now sorting these waste into recycling bins, “just like you separate cartons, paper and plastic,” Mr. Broye said.

In 2019, when Panatere sent the scrap to a standard French furnace for melting, it was able to obtain 50 tons of recycled steel. It hopes to increase the output to 200 tons per year through the new solar furnace.

"We have conducted a series of tests to evaluate the performance, anti-allergic properties and biocompatibility of this kind of recycling nuances or waste," he said. "It can be recycled indefinitely, the polishing time is dazzling, spotless, and there is no degradation in performance."

Panatere said that its recycled steel is now sold at the same price as traditional steel — 20 to 25 Swiss francs per kilogram — and the Swiss government's subsidies will also enable it to sell its solar energy recycling products at competitive prices.

In October, Panatere won the first prize in the Responsibility and Sustainability category in the Luxury Innovation Awards, which was organized in Geneva by the Luxury Venture Group in cooperation with Porsche, a Swiss luxury startup incubator and venture capital institution. And Vontobel Banking and Financial Group.

On December 1, Panatere announced that it had successfully produced (in a traditional steel furnace, not a solar furnace) 200 kg of 100% recyclable and recyclable grade 5 titanium.

"We are not environmentalists of Birkenstocks and sweaters," Mr. Broye said. "We want to produce local, durable and profitable raw materials."