For some pieces of gold jewelry, such as wedding rings or family heirlooms, the value of the item goes well beyond its original purchase cost. For many people, gold jewelry holds great sentimental value, making it almost priceless. Although the feelings that your jewelry represents are invaluable, the gold from which they are made has a very high cost.
Chances are, you have given very little thought to gold mining. Perhaps it harbors outdated concepts of gold mining from movies or books about the American gold rush. There is nothing romantic or free-spirited about modern gold mining. Two-thirds of all refined gold currently used or stored was recently mined from the ground. Only a third of the gold currently in use has been recycled from previous products.
Of the newly mined gold in circulation, roughly two-thirds came from huge open pit mines. In addition to being a nasty blight on the landscape, sometimes even visible from space, these huge mines create several serious environmental problems.
The rock and soil from mining craters has to go somewhere. Due to the chemicals used in the mining process, waste rock is full of acids and toxic metals. Toxic byproducts seeping from waste rock make groundwater much more acidic than battery acid.
Miners dig for ore and look for veins of gold embedded in the ore. Gold is extracted from ore by crushing huge piles, just like in a rock quarry. The ore piles are sprayed with cyanide to separate the gold from the ore. Even a small amount of cyanide can be fatal to a human, and mines use tons every day. Mostly contaminated waste ore piles are left behind. It takes about 18 tons of ore to get enough gold for one ring.
Smelting is the next step in the gold refining process. The extracted gold is sent from the mine to a smelter. There, the gold is melted down under intense heat to separate out the impurities. Gold is not the only metal melted in this way. The casting process generates large energy consumption and air pollution.
The purified gold is then ready for the market. The vast majority of pure gold, more than 80%, will go into jewelry making. Investors buy and trade the remaining purified gold, some of which is even used in electronics. Your computer and cell phone may even include components that use gold filaments.
Naturally, jewelry making is profitable. In Europe and the United States, gold jewelry generally sells for several times the actual value of its gold. Unlike diamonds, most jewelers don’t know the exact origin of their gold. It is generally not a concern of the jewelry industry. However, gold production should be of concern to consumers due to the environmental consequences of open pit mining.
