Why you harm the environment with your jewelry and what you can do about it!

The environment and many people have to suffer for their jewelry. Only when you know more about it can you make the right decision and not have to go without jewelry.

Right now our environment is getting a lot of attention from activists. Greta Thunberg speaks to the United Nations and holds up a mirror to us. Critical artists like Campino von den Toten Hosen or Leonardo DiCaprio are committed to ensuring that something changes in our world. The pursuit of economic growth and money is devastating, but each of us can do something to counteract it.

The climate is changing, we notice it in the hotter summers, in the melting glaciers and also in the various natural disasters that we hear about in the daily news. As you are reading this article, you are also interested in what you can do to improve it and would like to change something. There are many areas that we can improve in, but in this article we want to go into the jewelry area specifically.

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash Jewelry made from conventional jewelry materials such as gold, silver or precious stones are often won in crisis regions. The working conditions there are poor and in many cases the ordinary workers are exploited. The high profit is distributed among a few and thus creates a high imbalance in society. In addition, chemicals are often used to extract the raw materials, which are bad for the environment and also cause illnesses in day laborers.

Gold is mostly mined in South Africa, Australia, Russia and the USA. But because of the high gold prices, remote areas in South America are also interesting. The mining creates huge mines, the rainforest is cleared and the areas resemble a lunar landscape. Toxic chemicals such as cyanide and mercury are used to wash the gold out of the mined rock. This poisons the waterways, the soil and the workers. Most of the time the workers are poorly paid for their deadly work, many of them children.

The extraction of other metals such as silver, nickel, copper, etc. can also cause environmental pollution due to a lack of industrial standards. 30% of the silver is extracted in Peru. The rock is heated strongly and made liquid with the addition of coal. This can cause severe pollution from emissions. These emissions harm the environment and the organism. People in the immediate vicinity ingest these pollutants through the polluted water or food. Since common costume jewelry is also made from these materials, it is not a solution to the problem

The term blood diamond has nothing to do with the red color of the diamond. Using the example of the Congo, we can see how the expensive raw material can harm a people. Here, diamonds are often illegally removed by rebels to buy weapons. The poor people are forced to work for the rebels, but see nothing of the wealth. A few benefit from the diamonds and cause great suffering.

So what solution is there to the problem, should we no longer wear jewelry?

No, there are several options here. If you love the color of gold and want to continue to wear gold jewelry, there is the possibility of melting down old jewelry or dentures and extracting pure gold from them in special gold separators. Gold is also used in many electronic products and can be recycled. Let them create your new, individual jewelry.

But jewelry doesn't always have to be made of metal. We can especially offer you sustainable jewelery made from natural rubber. Natural rubber is a renewable resource. Our rubber is obtained from small cooperatives in the Brazilian rainforest. In this way you protect the rainforest, help small farmers and can wear beautiful, individual jewelry with a clear conscience.

Eco Fashion Our producer is a member of Eco fashion movement in Latin America.

As mentioned at the beginning, a major rethinking is taking place in our society. We only have one earth and we want our descendants to be able to animate this wonderful place too. Even if the right choice of jewelry is only a small contribution, many small contributions result in something big.

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