First let me say that I'm aware that mining does damage the environment and that is a bad thing but I take issue with the many "facts" in this article.

"- To extract gold or silver from the ore, the ore is crushed, piled into huge heaps, and sprayed with cyanide."

Man if you watch History channel Modern Marvels and the Boneyard(a show that features many cool ways to recycle things at their end of life) you would know that's not quite the way it's done. Cyanide is used but the way this "fact" is written it makes it sound like this is all done outside and the unwanted metals are allowed to leach into soil or something like that. They'd lose all the gold if they did that. The process takes place in tanks in a processing plant. The other metals liberated are probably recovered and put to use. The lead and cadmium might end up in batteries that power some peoples electric cars.

10% of the worlds energy, I'd like to see some proof of that "fact" and the rest of these "facts"

"Every year, mines in the U.S. generate an amount of solid waste equivalent in weight to nearly 9 times the trash produced by all U.S. cities & towns combined."

This probably means all mines combined, much of this "waste" is rock. While this may liberate some harmful materials and release them into the environment much of this is just rocks.

I am a opposed to gold mining in all its forms, but I am also not a fan of sloppy research. The fact that gold mining uses 10% of the world's energy sounded implausible to me. I checked the "No Dirty Gold" web site, where Rust Belt appears to have found this tidbit, and saw that the actual quote is that "metal mining consumes as much as 10% of the world energy". Metal mining also includes copper, iron, aluminum, nickel, which are some of the biggest industries in the world. It would be interesting to know how much of that comes from gold, but in general, bad facts like that, when recognized, make people less credulous of the many horrific-but-true environmental facts out there.

10% seems unrealistic, and probably discreditting.

A lot of mining does let their waste re-enter the environment, unfortunately. Places where people are scraping together a living by collecting gold and gemstones are often processing ore right in the local river. Mercury poisoning is a deadly side effect of this practice (both in people and the river eco-system).

The sad thing is that so much mining is for bling.

My name is Anna Bario and I am a co-designer with Page Neal for Rust Belt. We wanted to respond to some of the comments here. First off, Daniel pointed out a mistake on the issues page of our website. We corrected the error and we’re sorry for any confusion.
Also, I think some of the comments misunderstand what we’ve tried to do with our site. Page & I are jewelry designers; this is not our own research and we credit the institutions whose research backs up the information on our issues page. Our links page provides many real resources, like the No Dirty Gold site, Ethical Metalsmiths, the Association for Responsible Mining, Earthworks, and the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices. If anyone is looking for more information about these issues, please visit those sites. We don’t need to sensationalize any information about precious metals mining. There are so many “horrific-but-true environmental facts out there.”
Our approach to design emphasizes transparency in our own practices, and an awareness of a material’s history. We post to a blog on our site (www.rust-belt.org/blog) where we share our original research and experiences as we try to make jewelry responsibly.

I really love this collection. It's really different from much of jewelry out there. I am a jewelry designer and try to be aware of the industry's politics. I think it's really awesome that you guys have a research blog and are so open with your methods. I had no idea that you could use a hard boiled egg to oxidize metal or citric acid instead of pickle. Thanks for the good tips & helping out us other designers who want to be invovled. The jewelry swap back party seems like a really cool idea!

Some of the stats were indeed misquoted, like the 9X waste of all US cities and towns. It's only the mines' cities and towns, which makes more sense even if ridiculously wasteful still, as rocks are heavy and those are small towns and cities near which the mines are built.

NY and LA didn't qualify as mining cities, last I checked, and the SF 49ers were not a reference to mines with SF, only by-gone days history. :-)

I recommend looking at the source reports (Google No Dirty Gold and Ethical Metalsmiths) and suggest for general consumption as I did blogging stats on my blog (click user name for link).

My name is Anna Bario and I am a co-designer with Page Neal for Rust Belt. We wanted to respond to some of the comments here. First off, Daniel pointed out a mistake on the issues page of our website. We corrected the error and we’re sorry for any confusion.

Also, I think some of the comments misunderstand what we’ve tried to do with our site. Page & I are jewelry designers; this is not our own research and we credit the institutions whose research backs up the information on our issues page. Our links page provides many real resources, like the No Dirty Gold site, Ethical Metalsmiths, the Association for Responsible Mining, Earthworks, and the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices. If anyone is looking for more information about these issues, please visit those sites. We don’t need to sensationalize any information about precious metals mining. There are so many “horrific-but-true environmental facts out there.”

Our approach to design emphasizes transparency in our own practices, and an awareness of a material’s history. We post to a blog on our site (www.rust-belt.org/blog) where we share our original research and experiences as we try to make jewelry responsibly.

I wanted to respond to the person who commented that most of the waste is "just rocks." Even though cyanide leaching is done indoors in a processing plant, it doesn't mean that the waste rock is disposed of correctly.

Much of the environmental problems associated with mining are caused by careless waste rock disposals in which heavy metals leach into aquatic systems.

Also, there are many problems related to cyanide transportation accidents. Though mines in the US have more strict environmental laws, many mines are located in less developed parts of the world where workers suffer from the consequences of slack mining laws.

My name is Anna Bario and I am a co-designer with Page Neal for Rust Belt. We wanted to respond to some of the comments here. First off, Daniel pointed out a mistake on the issues page of our website. We corrected the error and we’re sorry for any confusion.

Also, I think some of the comments misunderstand what we’ve tried to do with our site. Page & I are jewelry designers; this is not our own research and we credit the institutions whose research backs up the information on our issues page. Our links page provides many real resources, like the No Dirty Gold site, Ethical Metalsmiths, the Association for Responsible Mining, Earthworks, and the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices. If anyone is looking for more information about these issues, please visit those sites. We don’t need to sensationalize any information about precious metals mining. There are so many “horrific-but-true environmental facts out there.”

Our approach to design emphasizes transparency in our own practices, and an awareness of a material’s history. We post to a blog on our site (www.rust-belt.org/blog) where we share our original research and experiences as we try to make jewelry responsibly.

Just checked out the Rust Belt site. Super cool. Sometimes its hard to find eco-design that is also fashion forward, but the collection is super smart and hip. I also like that the packaging is repurposed.

I think its really awesome how upfront Anna & Page are on their blog. Lots of times you just really don't know what people are doing.