Is Transforming Jewellery Better for the Environment than Buying New?
Purchasing more sustainable items goes far beyond avoiding fast fashion and visiting your local farmer’s market. Sure, these are both great ways to reduce your personal impact on the environment, but have you stopped to consider the ecological impact of your jewellery?
The Environmental Cost of Jewellery
The truth is that all of the precious metals, minerals, and gemstones that form every piece in your collection have to come from somewhere. The problem is that, in order to keep costs low, that somewhere is usually a mine in a foreign country that is using land taken from Indigenous peoples, endangered natural populations, or comes from a result of deforestation.
Not to mention that most of these mines run on fossil fuels, as they’re typically the cheapest form of fuel available. These mines also often produce toxic chemicals as a waste material which, of course, needs to be disposed of responsibly - however, many mines have been found to dump waste into the environment. According to Earthworks, a single gold ring generates more than 20 tons of waste from mining alone.
You also have to consider that diamond mining, and mining for other precious metals and minerals, have funded various human rights crises across the years, and are indisputably linked to political oppression, war, and inequality across the world.
Diamond mining is estimated to have an average carbon footprint of 108.5kg/carat. With an estimated 1.2 billion carats of diamonds in reserve worldwide, and billions more estimated to be unaccounted for due to illegal diamond trading, diamond mining alone is incredibly destructive and a major contributor to climate change.
Unless you’re purchasing a gemstone that’s certified to have been created in a lab, there’s no way of knowing where the gemstones and metals in your jewellery come from. You don’t know whether the people who mined the gold and diamonds, shipped them to the jeweller, cut the diamonds, forged the gold, and created the ring were taken care of with a living wage and empowering working conditions.
Why Jewellery Transformation?
While purchasing used jewellery, or donating or selling old jewellery, can go some way towards tackling the overconsumption of precious metals and gemstones, there is another option - upcycling your old jewellery into something new.
After all, we know that jewellery can carry a lot of memories, particularly if it was passed down from generation to generation, or it’s a sentimental piece bought for you on a special occasion. When you have jewellery like this, it’s hard to say goodbye, even if you know it’s the “right” thing to do.
There’s also harsh truth to face up to here - the environmental cost of creating that jewellery has already been paid, but the cycle can end with you. Mines, and their ongoing ecological impact and ethical costs, only continue producing minerals, expanding to new sites, and pumping out toxic waste due to continued demand for new jewellery.
Sure, not all of those minerals will be used in jewellery - phones and other electronic products will need gold, silver, and other minerals for electrical circuitry - but that’s a whole other discussion.
But it’s this demand that keeps mines running. Because if jewellers keep purchasing minerals, these mines can keep making a profit, which means they’ll carry on destroying the environment and funding human rights conflicts around the world.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at how upcycling your old pieces into Legacy jewellery can benefit the environment (and your bank balance!).
Benefits of Legacy Jewellery
So, what happens when you decide to recycle your jewellery into a Legacy piece?
YOU REDUCE DEMAND FOR NEW JEWELLERY
You might not think one person deciding not to buy more jewellery will have much of an effect. But when multiple people do it, it becomes a trend. You only have to look at how many more stores carry reusable straws and coffee cups to see what consumer demand does to stock.
The more consumers like you decide to recycle jewellery, the less demand you put on jewellers for new pieces - so, there’s less demand on the mines. Mines take less profit, so they’re forced to reduce their operations, and jewellers can respond to consumer trends by stocking more ethically produced jewellery. It’s a win-win.
You Save Money
Jewellery transformation costs less than buying a piece of jewellery from new because you’re not always buying new minerals, metals, or gemstones. It’ll still have a cost attached, though - you’re paying for an expert jeweller to design jewellery around your pre-existing pieces and reforge them into something new - but it won’t necessarily be as expensive as new jewellery.
You Can Keep Treasured Memories Intact
Whether it’s your gran’s diamond earrings or your great-great-uncle’s wedding ring, we know how sentimental jewellery can be, even if it’s something that you don’t want to wear. By recycling old, sentimental jewellery into something new, not only can you turn it into something that suits your style, but you can carry these memories forwards into a new chapter of your life.
Legacy Jewellery
If you’ve got some old jewellery you’d love to upcycle into a one-of-a-kind Legacy piece, then we can help. We’ll work with you to create a bespoke design that fits your personality and style and works with the gemstones and metals in your old jewellery.
Whether you’re after a custom wedding ring using diamonds passed down from previous generations or even a pair of earrings made from gemstones from both sides of your family, we can create a new statement piece that keeps the heritage of your old jewellery intact.
To learn more about Legacy Jewellery, you can see previous Legacy pieces here. If you’ve got any more questions, or you want to request a design, drop our friendly team a line - we’d love to make your dream jewellery a reality.
