[Jewelry making - Article 00207] - Re: [Orchid] Responsible Gold

[Daniel Spirer]

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>     I am a environmentally conscious person and now I am feeling major
>     conflict over the work I sell. 

    Do you feel conflict over using your computer? There are
    environmentally destructive elements used in every computer. Do you
    feel conflict over using your car to get places? Cars use oil,
    something that is rapidly turning into the most environmentally
    destructive stuff out there. Do you feel conflict over turning on the
    heat in your house (or the air conditioning)? Same thing. Do you eat
    meat? Methane gas from cows is harming the environment every day. 

    All we as humans can do is minimize our impact, but we will never
    get rid of our impact on the Earth. If you decide to stop using gold
    it won't have one iota of impact on what is being done out there. Not
    one mining company is going to stop their operations (especially not
    with current gold prices). Using recycled gold only won't truly help
    either because by selling your gold work to the public you are just
    increasing the desire in general to own gold jewelry and most
    jewelers can't use only recycled gold. 

    And how about this? When you switch from using a casting operation
    like Billanti's, which is relatively energy efficient because of the
    quantities they produce, to setting up your own operation in house,
    which, unless you're doing thousands of castings a week (which it
    doesn't sound like), is going to be far less energy efficient, what
    extra damage are you doing to the environment? Additionally you're
    going to go out and buy all that new equipment, all of which uses
    energy to produce and various elements to make that will be taken
    from the earth as well. So while you may be helping (albeit very
    slightly) one impact by using your own recycled gold, you're doing a
    whole lot of other damage to the environment at the same time. 

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-234-4392
daniel AT spirerjewelers.com
www.spirerjewelers.com

 
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