The Mad Gold Rush

As Festival season comes, the rush for ornaments made of gold have increased many fold. Most of us buy gold without much of a thought into what goes behind making it. While gold has become the most sought after metal for women folk, it is predominantly an idle investment that goes on display once in a while. Though always unknown, the effects of digging mines for more gold is affecting the earth much more than it used to do earlier.

Recently Marinduque, a province in philipines protested against indiscriminate dumping practices by Mining Corp from 1964 to 1997, which was 39.9 percent owned by Placer Dome ,the second largest canadian gold mining company. They also sued Placer Dome for an unspecified amount. The Reason Marcopper had produced enough wastes during mining, that had deeply polluted rivers,land and sea bays in addition to harming the health of the citizens of the province.It is said that, there was also enough waste that you could load them into trucks and unfill to form a circle around the earth, 3 times until done.Aid and advocacy group Oxfam and the United States Geological Survey had separately estimated the cost of cleaning up just some of Marinduque's rivers at more than $100 million. No wonder the people of philipines wanted to sue the company.

The pollution and damage to earth caused by digging gold has far exceeded its economic benifits. As a matter of fact no developed nation allows gold mining in their land without proper Environmental protection plans. 70% of all gold these days come from Developing countries in Asia, Africa and South America,where there are no stringent environmental rules to prevent the mining companies from dumping the wastes in rivers and seas.

Wastes produced from gold mining are huge, to give a perspective of how much waste is produced, an ounce of gold (Approx .4 kg) needs about 30 tons of rock mass and an considerable amount of cyanide, mercury and other chemicals to extract and purify it. Not to mention the Air and water pollution mining causes, it also causes a severe ecological imbalance and increases the possibility of depletion of essential natural resources. Large areas of Rain forests in the Amazon and other other basins have already been destroyed in search of gold. Analysis of mercury levels in people using these water resources also seems to be high and dangerous.

As we prepare to face the festive season,Unnecessary investments in gold can be prevented to make world a little better for the future. While Air and water pollution from the direct sources have been the major focus areas for most groups, indirect sources of pollution are fast eating away the scarce natural resources and remain unnoticed. Before we even realise we would have lost a lot of precious natural resources including forests, rivers, coral reefs/bays etc.

Next time you buy a Gold ring,chain or a Bangle,better Think!.

For People who are obsessed with chains and rings, we can think of alternatives for Gold? Obviously there are Gold coated ones,they would need much less gold and are certainly preferable from a environmental stand point, but they are considered inappropriate to be worn, by people of a cerrain social status and that would prevent it becoming a wide spread alternative. There is Platinum, thats becoming much more common these days, but being a metal, it's effects would be as bad as that of gold and it's bound to suffer the same fate as gold.There's an alternative in Plastic / Fiber which not only have a good life but are also cheap and trendy. Given the cost savings, they can also be bought in more numbers in a variety of styles and design.However,Plastics pose a problem with disposal, hence moderation of use would be recommended.

This Appeal is from proponents of earth conservation organisation goes as such..
"We expect every person to be a responsible Earthian, Chains and bangles made out of materials like Shells, Cocunut husk,Paper are the least polluting,Hence we request that every one buy these, and restrain from buying Ornaments made of Gold and other metals-that severely harm our eco society."