Environmental Impact

Environmental Impact

As a general rule, mining the earth for all the gold, silver, platinum and titanium that go into trinkets and jewelry is not ecologically sound. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), hard-rock mining produces more toxic waste than any other industry in the United States. Some mines extract as little as one ounce of gold from 100 tons of excavated earth, and, according to the environmental group WorldWatch Institute, the gold produced for a single .33 ounce, 18-karat gold ring generates 18 tons of mine waste.

Cyanide heap leaching (where cyanide is sprayed on piles of gold and ore to separate them) and acid mine drainage (a slurry of arsenic, lead and mercury) have given gold mining the reputation of being one of the dirtiest industries in existence. Cyanide mixtures and acid mine drainage are both stored in underground ponds, after being used to extract gold, but the lined ponds don't always offer the best protection. These toxic liquids can eat through linings and earth, causing underground reservoirs to collapse and pollute nearby water supplies and rivers. Open pit mines can also fill with acidic water, which kills birds and other wildlife when they drink it.

Mining also consumes as much as 10 percent of the world's energy supply. According to the report "Dirty Metals," published by Oxfam America and the environmental nonprofit Earthworks, the U.S. mining industry consumes the same amount of energy needed to power 25 million single-family homes for a year. Converting all that mined ore into a material suitable for jewelry is also responsible for nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide, both potent greenhouse gases and components of smog and acid rain.

Read more about gold in National Geographic's The Price of Gold.

Social Issues

Conflict Diamonds

The term "conflict diamonds" refers to diamonds that have been mined in areas controlled by military forces opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments. Those military groups trade conflict diamonds for money to fund brutal civil wars, like past wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Republic of Congo.

Hoping to eliminate this kind of trade, a large group of diamond-producing and -trading countries have banded together to create a regulatory system called the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). The scheme requires member governments to certify that any rough diamonds shipped out of their countries come from legitimate mines; each shipment should be transported in tamper-proof packaging and accompanied by a certificate of origin. When those diamonds arrive at a cutting and polishing center, the supplier (for instance, De Beers) should verify that the stones came from a KPCS member government.

Despite its good intentions, the KPCS has been criticized for not sticking to those standards and for lax enforcement. Conflict diamonds from non-KPCS members have been smuggled into member countries, where they're shipped with legitimate KPCS certificates of origin. Although leaders of the KPCS say that those illegal diamonds equal a mere 0.1 percent of global supply, estimates place their value at $23 million—plenty of money to fund wars in a developing nation.