Introduction
A gold ring on your finger may be priceless as a symbol of eternity. But the method of producing a gold ring certainly costs far more than the worth of the metal. To produce just one gold ring, 20 tonnes of waste are generating and an ever-lasting ecological footprint will be left the ground. Gold mining is one of the dirtiest industries in the world and it is certainly costing the entire planet and people who live there. (No Dirty Gold, n.d.)
Although gold is getting more expensive, there is a trend towards high turnover of jewelry designs and affordable prices. The notion of jewelry is also changing from the ways of investing money or money laundering to seasonal fashion items along with the current fashion trend of “disposable chic”(Larenaudie, 2004). Usage of gold to make into jewelry is also changing in a creative way, because people consider more of the color and design than the weight of gold and quality of precious stones. If consumers become conscious about the material costs that are getting higher, and the environmentally hazardous gold mining procedure, there will be a huge possibility of downturn in jewelry industry in near future.
To overcome all of these issues, recycling gold is one of the ways to make the industry sustainable along with creative ways of design such as containing less gold and using alternative materials because of the high material cost which jewelry industry has to be burdened and the current jewelry trend which customers does not care much about the containing of high karat gold.
Fashion trends in jewelry
Even though in some countries gold is treasured as a form of saving, gold jewelry is a mass-market product in these days and jewelry fabrications are the most important factor to success in the industry. A symbol of power and wealth is transforming fast into a fashion and style, and craftsmanship and design are the most important issues in jewelry than the quality and weight of fine materials.
As fine jewelry takes an important role in the fashion industry, the design turnover in jewelry becomes faster and faster. It is extremely hard to remain in business if the firm doesn’t invest in innovative design and doesn’t develop new materials. Recently, famous designers and high fashion brand companies have added new jewelry and watch lines as joint ventures with luxury jewelry manufacturers. So far, Richemont and Polo Ralph Lauren agreed to form a new business, famous wedding dress designer Vera Wang launched her jewelry line successfully, and Ivanka Trump, a fashion model and heir of Donald Trump opened a fine jewelry store in New York City. These kinds of trends predict that end of using traditional material such as gold or precious stones. Fashion designers already started using steel and titanium instead of gold, and moissanites and semi precious color stones instead of diamonds. Those cases indicate that there is no specialty and expertise in the jewelry business any longer. Whoever has an innovative mind and designing talent can lead this industry.
Industry absorbs that there are many positive trends in the jewelry market such as female self-purchasers, celebrity jewelry trends, demand in men’s jewelry, and the consumption of silver as an alternative metal for gold. Self-purchasers who were once neglected from the traditional jewelry environment are considered to be the biggest opportunity for jewelers and the reason that those self-purchasers look to them for the most current and fashionable shapes and colors generated by stylish celebrities makes celebrity marketing inevitable (JCK style, 2007). The self-purchasers prefer affordably priced jewelry to keep up with the fast turnover of fashion trend using versatile materials to match with the cloths, shoes and handbags. As personal electronic appliances become the hottest trend in fashion world, alternative metals such as titanium and silver as well as non-traditional materials such as leather, wood, and plastics are getting popular especially in men’s jewelry. More futuristic and industrial looking accessories made by new alternative materials will gain attention from the i-pod generation too. Silver becomes the favorite metal among designers because of the relative affordability, strong trend of blackened metal, and freedom to choose new fine materials (Silver Sizzle, 2007). Silver and gemstones are pretty good options for self-purchasing women who want to create a stylish look with reasonable prices and for men as modern accessories (Silver Sizzle, 2007).
Currently, jewelry is losing its value as an investment instrument. Traditionally, the price of gold has reversed from economic conditions, thus people invest on gold and jewelry when the financial distress is expecting. But it is not a right theory any longer. It is extremely hard to predict future price of gold in these days and according to Kelly (2007) selling jewelry has many pitfalls. Especially, liquidating antique jewelry is extremely difficult because of the outdated design. It is common that you will get only scrape value of the jewelry or less than one third of the original price. If most new mined gold is consumed for jewelry, there are enough reasons to encourage the recycling of old gold to recreate into the most decent designs to adore them as well as saving the high material cost (if customers reuse their own gold) and the environmental cost.
No dirty gold practice
Gold is an indestructible material that is easy to recover, refine, and reuse. It is believed that all the gold that has ever been mined still exists somewhere on the earth in some forms of old jewelry, bars, coins and electronic components. Nowadays, the use of recycled gold or scrap is only 25% of the entire demand.
Historically, the supply of recycled gold largely depends on the price of gold with ups and downs of economic circumstances. For instance the supply raised under economic recession and inflation. But the supply of recycled gold can be largely changed by the will of people.
In 1998 during the Asian financial crisis, the South Korean economy struggled with serious financial problems from a shortage of foreign exchange. At that time, individual households participated in a gold collection campaign and contributed to saving the nation’s economy. As a result, a total of 300 tonnes of gold (an average of 65 grams per household) were collected in few months and exchanged for bonds in Korean currency (Recycled Gold, 2007). Chart 5 shows the supply of scrap over last ten years in the world, and the peak in 1998 was the result by the motivation of Koreans to save their economy.
Source: http://www.gold.org/value/markets/supply_demand/recycled.html
The “Ethical Consumer”, the UK’s leading alternative consumer organization, proclaims that “to the ethical consumer, their money is a vote which they use every time they go shopping”(Ethical Consumer, n.d.). Today, consumer awareness of the unethical practice of multi national corporations against human rights, and green issues in the third country becomes higher. Companies are also perceptive about the consumer boycotts, because the boycotts could not only bring huge financial implications, but also impact the brand image seriously.
Earthworks and Oxfam America are the leading organizations, which currently work for the “No Dirty Gold Campaign” around the world to end environmentally and socially destructive mining practices. The campaign urges the mining and jewelry industry to commit the full protection of the human right and the environment and not to cost the communities for the purpose of mining companies “making profit”(Dirty Metal, 2004). Along with the trend of green movements, some responsible jewelry manufacturers including “Green Karat (www.greenkarat.com)” and “Brilliant Earth (www.brilliantearth.com)”are selling recycled gold products through their websites. Those jewelers believe that “consumers have the ability to demand the liberation of the idle gold through their purchasing decisions”, and they open a niche market of using recycled gold and ethically controlled gemstones only. The sustainable change of jewelry industry can start from the producers by the campaigns, but buying recycled gold is one of the most effective ways to change the world in principle of commerce (Green Karat, 2007).
Conclusion
Gold mining is one of the dirtiest industries bring social and ecological destructions and costing enormous amount of money to restore the damages. Also miners are the most dangerous professions against human rights all over the world. According to the supply and demand statistics from World Gold Council, there is enough gold above ground to satisfy all demands of the jewelry for the next fifty years in the form of old and unused jewelry. Gold jewelry was considered to be an investment in history, but it is losing the monetary value because of the high turnovers in fashion trend. Liquidating jewelry is even harder even though gold is getting expensive.
But still, gold is valuable material to incite higher participation in the recycling practice, incentives and campaigns of recycling gold for public are needed to prevent all of the hazardous impacts created from gold mining process. Finding alternative materials for jewelry substitute gold is also necessary to sustain the jewelry industry to afford a rocketing gold price.
As all, the most effective practice for the earth and people is banning the purchase of newly mined gold and asking the producers recycled gold products as an ethical consumer action. It is time to extract gold not from the deeper in the earth risking all the ecosystems and human rights, but from junkyard and scrapes.
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