A top Canadian jeweller is betting that abandoned gold mines are an untapped, well, gold mine.
What happened: Popular Canadian jewelry brand Mejuri released a new line featuring pieces made entirely of gold recovered from waste at abandoned gold mines. The line is Mejuri’s second collaboration with the U.S. public benefit company Regeneration.
Catch-up: Closed-down mines leak waste containing yucky stuff like mercury or arsenic into waterways. However, this waste also contains leftover gold. Regeneration’s business model is harvesting this run-off, selling it, and using the profits to restore affected areas.
- Through its Salmon Gold initiative, Regeneration has funded five cleanup/harvesting initiatives at mines in northern B.C., the Yukon, and Alaska.
- In addition to Mejuri, Regeneration has partnerships with the likes of Apple and Tiffany and Co.
Why it matters: Canada is home to at least 10,000 orphaned or abandoned mines, though that number could be much higher. Cleaning them up is expensive — e.g., the estimated $4.38 billion price tag to tidy up the Giant Mine in NWT — and paid for with taxpayer dollars.
- The proliferation of companies like Regeneration could help with these efforts while capitalizing on the ~$10 billion in metal value hiding in Canadian gold mine waste.
Yes, but: It’s too early to tell if Regeneration’s business model is profitable, and it's also unclear if a similar model would be feasible for other sites besides gold mines.—QH