Ethical mining; ethical gold; and the myth of recycled gemstones

Is ethical jewelry possible?  Just because the gold or silver is recycled, does that make it ethical?  Just because the gemstone has been used before, does that extirpate opprobrium that may cling to its origin?

I fail to understand how using recycled mined materials makes one iota of difference to the ethical nature of a mined material.  No amount of reuse can change the ethical nature of a material.  Afterall ethics does not reside in the material as an inherent property. The ethics is in the mind of the user of the gold.  And while the mind of the ethical jeweler may be able to view recycled gold as ethical, to me that is no more than a sleigh of hand, sleigh of mind subterfuge.

I can understand how gold from a mine that did not displace an indigenous population, that pays a livable wage, that controls its cyanide, and which has an approved closure plan may be considered ethical.  But even that is relatively arbitrary.  For one person may consider compliance with the International Cyanide Code sufficient to brand the gold ethical.  Another person may consider the mere use of cyanide unethical per se.  It all depends.   

Fact is that if the total sum of human toil and distress involved in gaining the current stock of gold is considered, there can be no possible gram anywhere that is entirely free of some venial act, some transgression, some injustice.  Needless to say, I regard imputing to an inanimate object like gold, moral or ethical qualities, to be a dangerous slide of logic. 

To repeat my main point,  recycling a material whose origins are shrouded in transgressions and injustices does not wipe clean those transgression and injustices.  If your mind is such that you think it unethical to be the first to use the gold derived from a questionable source, then it must follow that you think it unethical to use that same gold no matter how many time it is re-used.   On the basis that all re-used gold (whatever that is) must include some with a questionable source, you must arrive at the inevitable conclusion that you cannot and must not use gold, virgin, antique, or recycled. 

And the same argument applies to objects of recycled wood, plastic, paper, silver, or oil.   Recycling such materials may well be good way to reduce demands for new product, but recycling does nothing to make the reused material “clean, good, and holy.”  That old southern bench from before the Civil War may have been sat on many a time, but does its origin on a farm in the Confederate region, make it unethical?

In writing this, my mind harps to the possibility that there are indeed acts to horrible that any product resulting from such acts must be shunned by any moral person.  I am sure we can all think of examples.  But we shun those objects as the only way humanly possible of expressing our horror at the horrible acts that accompanied the object’s creation.   In such cases, no amount of use or reworking can take away the stain of that horror-derived object or suppress our instinct to shun it.  That is what it means to be a moral person.

This extreme example of morality is the reason I shun those pusillanimous jewelers and eco-friendly drum-beaters who proclaim their moral worth on the basis of the fact that they make their baubles of re-cycled materials.   To claim to be ethical because you do not use the new material but defer your use until somebody else has used it, strikes me as mere hypocrisy.  Kind of like hiding behind your mother’s stained apron.

To claim virtue because you are reusing materials simply to reduce the need to newly mine the material, strikes me as making a mountain out of a molehill.  Even I recycle Diet Coke cans.  That is simply the intelligent thing to do.  It does not invest me with moral worth or the right to brag. 

So I conclude:  make your jewlery from new or reused gold, whatever is cost-effective.  But do not claim to be ethical as a result of the age of your gold.  Bring pressure to bear to encourage miners to mine responsibly; that is akin to recycling Coke cans; simply the proper thing to do.  But do not claim virtue beyond normal human attribution simply because your gold comes from a mine in Utah or Nevada. 

Go to Wal-Mart because its goods are cheap, not because they have signed onto some flow chart purporting to show the gold in their trinkets is clean.  Or avoid Wal-Mart because it is hot and crowded, not because its gold is unrecycled.  Afterall most goods in Wal-Mart come from China, not Utah or Nevada, and we all know how little the workers get paid in China and how many miners they kill getting the coal to energize their productive capacity.  

There is no ethics in a pair of plastic shoes from Wal-Mart; there is no ethics in a slip-slop made of recycled tires; there is no ethics in a ugly gold bracelet.  It all in the mind—although I recognize you may have to do strange things to keep the mind happy and calm.  Whatever works for you.

 PS.  Having posted this piece, I came across an article on an SRK report that concluded that it is so confusing to find an ethical diamond that concerned buyers are electing to buy Canadian diamonds or artifical diamonds.  I wonder how they feel about Canadian lakes and the carbon footprint of the energy to make an artificial diamond.  Probably the same as you feel eating a vegan meal with organic wine.  I still prefer ribs and beer.