Green Washed Gold ♻️

I’ve seen the term “green washing” being used quite a lot in the media recently, but what exactly does it mean?

Well, basically, it’s a term used to describe either a person or company that’s waving the word arms about shouting “I’m eco friendly” with claims that aren’t really green at all. (An example…I received a catalogue (that I hadn’t asked for!) through the post yesterday and in there was a claim about some Christmas crackers, that were now supposedly “eco” as the plastic toys inside them came with a bag to keep them in for future use. OK, once idea, but come on…who is actually going to save some little plastic toys from a cracker and get them out to play with again? Maybe they might be a few times, but their fate has to inevitably be landfill, or if they’re VERY lucky, they “might” get put into a hard plastic recycling bin, but we all know that is a very big might! So, in this case, highlighting green washing is a very good thing.)

But…I’m obviously not really telling you this story to discuss small plastic toys….

A couple of weeks ago, I saw green washing being used to describe recycled gold! 

Now, there’s been a bit of a debate about fair-trade vs recycled gold for years now, and yes, I do completely understand that mining for fairtrade gold provides jobs for people who would “currently” otherwise have no income, but I’ve also recently watched a documentary about diamond mining, where the miners told the interviewer that they would much prefer to be doing something else. So, personally, I think that trying to claim that fair trade gold miners are all happily trotting off into the dark and chipping away every day because they love their jobs, can’t really all be true?

The argument against recycled gold, seems to be based around the fact that you don’t know where the gold came from before it’s recycled, just as you don’t know anything about the morals and ethics of the person that has been wearing an item of clothing before you that you might buy from a charity shop, who has been driving your second hand car before you, or who might have touched the cutlery that you use in your local vegan cafe - they might be an avid carnivore at home! The main thing here is that all of these things are already in existence in the world, and re-using them is going to have a massively lower carbon footprint/effect on our planet that whatever has to happen to make something new. Also, in the case of re-modelling a clients old jewellery, that gold often has massive sentimental value.

Gold mining, even if it has got a fair trade label attached, is dangerous for the people doing it, puts big holes in the ground and at some point, the gold (or diamonds) will run out. 

I think it’s very easy to confuse the terms and assume “fair trade” also means “eco friendly”, but in reality this just isn’t the case. In fact, if you think about it, putting an eco label onto something just because it has a fair trade sticker could actually be green washing in itself!

So, because of all this, my preference is always going to be recycled first, and if this isn’t available, and I absolutely have to buy newly mined gold, then I’ll go with fair trade.