Marry me, Superforest... and I'll give you a ring from GreenKarat!

Marriage is all about commitment.  But how long will that commitment be if we aren't taking care of our world well enough to assure we're going to be around for a long time?

GreenKarat.com is an organization built on sustainable jewelry practices.

I don't know about you guys, but I never even considered the effects of gold mining on the environment and how INCREDIBLY wasteful it is.  Just think of all the energy put into mining these "precious" metals out of the ground, and people aren't even using them in a particularly productive way.  Gold is a very valuable metal... and not just in terms of how pretty we all think it is:

"Gold is a very versatile metal. It is malleable and ductile. It’s a good conductor of heat and electricity, immune to tarnish, and resistant to acids. Although these properties make it very useful in industrial applications, 80% of the gold used each year nonetheless goes into jewelry.

While gold is valuable enough to provide an incentive to recycle, significant amounts of gold sit idle, while mining continues at a pace of 2,500 tons a year. In fact, there is enough gold above ground (already mined) to satisfy all demands of the jewelry industry for the next 50 years. Much of it sits in bank vaults and in the form of old and unused jewelry."

Excellent point, I say!  The romantic ideas of gold and diamonds "lasting forever" and symbolizing marriage and love in that regard are so sugary sweet; who wouldn't want to buy into them?  The dark side of it all is that both large and small mining operations are harmful to the environment and to the workers.  On a small scale, miners will even use the very dangerous cyanide and mercury to separate the precious things from the rock.  Thats no good in my book.

Luckily people at GreenKarat and some of their friends strive to do the following:

1. Stop the use of mercury in mining
2. Start the process of recovering damaged land
3. Help miners learn to operate with ecological awareness
4. Transition to the miners to sustainable livelihoods.

There plenty to read on the greenkarat site so i suggest you check it out!  Way cool!  And although its recycled jewelry, remind your loved one that you're proposing with a piece of jewelry that will ensure a VERY long life together :)

You can help them fundraise.  You can get recycle your unused jewelry.  YOU can help the environment!

Love to all!

Amy Pfaffman - Recycled Jewelry

Amy Pfaffman makes beautiful jewelry out of recycled materials, with delightful results.

Test tubes, coffee beans, old vinyl records, guitar picks, and sundry. All are reborn in Amy's skillful hands.

Coffee Bean Necklace.

Test Tube Necklace.

Key Necklace.


LP Necklace.


Glass Eye Cuff Links.

Amy's gear is gorgeous.
Here's her site: AmyJewelry.com.

Thanks to SuperForester Jack for the intel.

Enviro-Couture!!! Oooooooo.

These incredible photographs by Martin Gregus speak for themselves.

Enviro-couture is amazing.

What do we call this style?

Pre-Apocalyptic chic?
Post-Industrial hacker recyclo-chic?

Whatever it's called, I hope they do menswear next.

All of these outfits are the work of artist Elena Gregusova, who seems like the coolest person to hang with, share a bottle of wine, do some papier-mache? Could do? Call me.

“Wear the News™” project is Elena’s artistic reflection to contemporary multicultural communication and world environmental problems. The communication with the audience is realised through static and wearable artistic paper objects created exclusively from 100% recycled News(paper). Elena Gregusova addressed her artistic message to the community with the help of their own languages, the typefaces of the used News(paper) and the use of specific cultural and national symbols from any nation or country in the shape and structure of each object. At the same time Elena wants to show that, at the first sight after reading useless newspapers can be recycled with the help of a creative soul. Through her “Wear the News™” project Elena wants to make people aware of the importance of the nature and the protection of the environment for future generations. Now including the new objects from the Enviro Couture exhibition"



This is her. Isn't she awesome?




She so awesome.

designboom: Recycled Jewelry

SuperForester Meg just sent us this great link!

Over at designboom, they've got a beautiful multi-page spread of jewelry from around the world made of tantalizing recycled materials.

The pages are ordered roughly according to the materials used, so there's one page for glass & ceramic, one for paper, one for metals, all very beautiful and with links to the artist should you decide you wanty.

Check it:









Check out poor jewelry @ designboom

Special thanks to SuperForester Meg!