Conscious Choice Seattle: The Tarnish on Gold Jewelry

March 2005 | Living Green

The Tarnish on Gold Jewelry

By Co-op America

Dear Co-op America, Is gold jewelry a sustainable purchase? I say no, but a friend of mine isn’t sure. — Concerned in Washington, DC

You’re right to be concerned. Though all mineral mining is energy-intensive and polluting, the environmental impacts of gold mining are particularly severe. The majority of gold mining today takes place in “open-pit” mines, where machines move massive amounts of earth, leaving enormous craters.

The ratio of discarded earth and rock to marketable gold is particularly high. The Worldwatch Institute estimates about 300,000 tons of wastes are generated for every ton of marketable gold, or “roughly three tons of waste per gold wedding ring.”

The waste that gold mining generates contains toxic substances that can pollute air, soil and water. For example, ore containing gold is crushed and treated with a cyanide solution that bonds to the gold and drains it from the rock. Tailings—the processed rock slurries that remain after the gold has been extracted—are often contaminated with poisonous cyanide. What’s more, the cyanide-leaching treatment of ore can release other toxic heavy metals, such as arsenic and mercury, contained in the rocks.

Workers and communities suffer from gold mining too. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), “the toll of death, injury and disease among the world’s mineworkers means that, in most countries, mining remains the most hazardous occupation when the number of people exposed to risk is taken into account.”

Communities that will be affected by gold mining often receive too little consideration when a country grants mining leases. Governments eager to attract mining companies often subsidize mining operations and make laws favorable to companies. Changes include allowing 100-percent foreign ownership of mines and letting companies repatriate all profits. The mining jobs won’t necessarily even go to local residents, since mining companies require skilled labor and may bring in trained workers from elsewhere.

It gets worse: Local residents may lose their homes altogether to a mining operation.

Many indigenous groups and developing-world communities lack legal titles to the lands where they have lived for generations. When the government grants leases to such lands, residents face eviction, often with little or no compensation. A country’s police or armed forces may forcibly evict residents and perpetrate other human-rights abuses to quell community opposition.

Earthworks and Oxfam America have launched a “No Dirty Gold” campaign (www.nodirtygold.org) to address some of the detrimental effects of gold mining. The campaign is not calling for a boycott; rather, they’re asking consumers to tell gold retailers that they’d like to have a responsible alternative available, since there currently isn’t one.

Before buying gold jewelry, ask yourself if you really need it. See if you can borrow gold items, or check secondhand shops and eBay. Jewelers can alter gold items you don’t wear, or melt them down and rework them into new pieces. Or, look for new jewelry made out recycled gold. The website greenKarat (800/330-4605, www.greenkarat.com) offers jewelry made from recycled 14K and 18K gold.

Dear Co-op America, I have a green tip I’d like to share. To avoid single-use tags when planning an event where you need name tags, write guests’ names on wooden clothespins with a marker. Clothespins are ideal because they go easy on all fabrics, and you’ll find many guests enjoy taking them home to reuse. —Roberta Beach Jacobson, Karpathos Island, Greece

Great idea, Roberta! Thanks for passing it on.

Living Green is brought to you by Co-op America, a national nonprofit that provides green living, purchasing, and investing tips and resources. To join Co-op America and get a free copy of the National Green Pages™ directory of green businesses, call 800-58-GREEN, www.coopamerica.org.

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