Why Does Their Use Recycled Gold?

Movies and TV shows have made gold mining seem a lot like winning the lottery. Finding gold is hard but once you find it, it’s easy. In popular culture, gold exists in an already purified form in large nuggets and veins just waiting to be plucked from the Earth.

In reality, finding gold is just the beginning of the process and the really hard part is in extracting the gold. Most gold ores contain less than 10 grams of gold hidden in one tonne of rock. In order to extract that gold from the rock, miners must use some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet: cyanide and mercury. The result is that gold mining leads to staggering amounts of toxic waste. Companies that use open pit mining and cyanide heap leaching lead to the generation of 20 tons of toxic waste to produce enough gold for one ring. Meanwhile, the world’s 10 to 15 million small-scale miners release 1000 tonnes of mercury into the environment every year accounting for 35% of man-made mercury pollution.

If you’ve ever wondered why we have to worry about mercury in the fish we eat, gold mining is a big part of the reason.

That’s why Their has committed to using recycled gold and silver from day one in all our jewelry. By recycling the materials we already have, we can make beautiful jewelry and protect our beautiful world for future generations.