Is new gold better than recycled gold? Why?
Newly mined gold is not automatically better or worse than a recycled gold source. It’s about how it was mined, who mined it, and who benefits from it. The first step is knowing the origin of your gold – from there you can determine the environmental practices and working conditions at that mine. Newly mined gold can vary massively, from a few people hand-panning in a river and using almost no energy, to a highly mechanized large-scale operation with a massive environmental footprint.
In my personal view, the best thing we can do is to support artisanal mining communities that are mining gold responsibly and continuing to improve their practices. These smaller scale mines usually have a much smaller environmental footprint, but more importantly, it’s a way to work to reverse some of the colonialist impacts of the jewelry industry. Let’s support local people mining responsibly and benefiting from the resources of their own land rather than multinational corporations coming in and extracting all the wealth.
The environmental footprint of “recycled gold” vs new gold
Truthfully, there’s no solid answer to that question since recycled gold can mean so many different things. But, just as an example, let’s use the most commonly accepted definition of recycled gold (gold that has been refined more than once) and look at the first few steps of one potential life cycle:
1. First, the raw gold is mined
2. The gold is processed on site
3. The gold is transported to a refinery
4. The gold is refined to remove impurities – it’s melted down, treated with chloride, then electric current for further purifying
5. Gold is sold and transported to a manufacturer. The manufacturer casts some pieces and is left with leftover gold in the casting process.
6. The leftover “scrap gold” is transported to another refinery
7. That refinery processes the gold again, it’s transported to another manufacturer, and it can now be sold as “recycled gold”.