How are precious metals recycled?

Kudos for your sense of environmental responsibility! The mining of all precious metals causes damage to the environment, but gold is one of the exceedingly damaging types of mining. Just to give you an idea of how much earth is mined in the making of gold jewelry: twenty tons of ore must be mined in order to generate the amount of gold needed for just one gold ring. In addition, a lot of gold mines emit harmful chemicals into neighboring bodies of water and do not provide proper safety and labor conditions for those who actually do the gold mining. The use of recycled precious metals like gold helps to minimize the demand for more and more gold mining, hence reducing the harmful environmental effects of precious metal mining. Since precious metals can be recycled again and again without lowering their quality, they are commodities which are relatively easily renewed. Some responsible jewelry companies have made it a point to get precious metals back from several different resources, like jewelry that already exists but is no longer used, industrial metals, as well as electronics components. Once the precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, etc.) are recovered, they are refined and turned back into their pure state. The great part about recycling precious metals is that their quality is just as good as metals that have just been mined for the first time. Aside from creating jewelry with recycled precious metals, some jewelry companies also help the environment by using producing jewelry with vapor emissions cleaning systems during jewelry production. Furthermore, as an environmentally conscious jewelry consumer it is important to make it a point NOT to buy jewelry from providers that outsource their manufacturing to countries with low labor and environmental values in order to save money and increase their profits. Remember that such practices are not only socially irresponsible, they also affect the level of quality of the jewelry. If you want to do your part to help protect the environment from precious metal mining damage, you should make sure to buy jewelry only from eco-friendly jewelry companies that use recycled precious metals and adhere to high environmental standards. Keep in mind that "green" jewelry companies do not hide their environmental awareness. If a company is eco-friendly, they will certainly make it a part of their image so you can recognize such companies straight from the advertising.

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