Why Is Buying Recycled Gold Jewelry Important?

 

 

As part of Starling Jewelry's ongoing commitment to sustainable business practices that are kinder and gentler to our planet we are proud to announce that Starling is now SCS certified for 100% recycled yellow gold content and post-consumer diamonds and gemstones. This is a major milestone, as we are now one of only a few companies and the first retail companies to obtain this certification in jewelry. SCS Global Services has been providing global leadership in third-party quality, environmental and sustainability verification, certification, auditing, testing, and standards development for three decades. The SCS has only just recently launched these initiatives for jewelry and we are beyond proud to work with them on completing the certifications. 

 

 STARLING JEWELRY & HEIRLOOM REVIVAL'S SCS CERTIFICATIONS

Right now our 14k yellow gold pieces marked with the universal SCS kingfisher symbol of sustainability, denote that they are made using verified 100% recycled yellow gold, exclusive of chain and findings. And we aren’t just stopping at gold, we have also received a first of its kind - post-consumer gemstone and diamond certification! This certification is currently only a few of our One-Of-A-Kind birthstone rings, made using stones we sourced from our own customers and have direct knowledge of being post-consumer. We are working hard behind the scenes to create our first piece using 100% recycled metal and 100% post-consumer recycled diamonds! And currently sourcing diamonds for this new and exciting project, if you have old pieces of fine jewelry with small diamonds you would like to sell please email us. Help us become even more sustainable and get some cash for yourself!  We are also working on making our 14k white and rose gold certified 100% recycled as well, currently, we estimate it is 75% recycled and we look forward to getting it verified soon.

 

 

We have always been mindful of how the creation of fine jewelry impacts our environment, especially the mining of new materials which is why we embarked on the rigorous certification process. We are also extremely sensitive to the prevalent green-washing of not just jewelry, but all industries. We’ve seen it as consumers ourselves and it’s frustrating. In sustainability, you shouldn’t have to just take our word for it! We hope this certificate allows you to shop our 14k yellow gold with confidence.

 

WHY BUYING RECYCLED GOLD IS IMPORTANT? 

 

If you are also wondering why using recycled metals is so important, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite facts about mining and recycling metals below. One gold ring requires miners to generate at least 20 tons of toxic waste (including poisons like cyanide) (citation) whereas producing recycled metals like gold, silver and platinum emit 99.5% less carbon than mining! (citation). We are also sitting on a ton of unused potential - it’s estimated that 85% of the world’s gold is available for recycling and 10 million tons of CO2 would be saved if just 25% of all gold jewelry sold in the USA was made with recycled metals. 

When you wear our 14k yellow gold pieces you are joining Starling in making small choices that have a big impact on the earth, not just for us, but for future generations as well.

 

References:

 

(1) Earthworks — No Dirty Gold, 2020: “How the 20 tons of mine waste per gold ring figure was calculated.” https://www.earthworks.org/cms/assets/uploads/archive/files/publications/20TonsMemo_FINAL.pdf 1953.

 

(2) Harvey-Walker, Benn, 2019: “What’s the carbon cost of your jewellery?” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-carbon-cost-your-jewellery-benn-harvey-walker/

(3) Statista: “Distribution of global gold demand by industry in 2019.” https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/

(4) Fernandez, Jessica and Klimas, Christie, 2019: “A Life Cycle Assessment of Jewelry,” DePaul Discoveries: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 , Article 6. https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1151&context=depaul-disc

(5) Kimberley Process Statistics: Public Statistics — “Annual Global Summary: 2019 Production, Imports, Exports and KPC Counts.” https://kimberleyprocessstatistics.org/static/pdfs/public_statistics/2019/2019GlobalSummary.pdf