Do You Know Where Your Diamond Comes From?

Settling back into our regular lives, I picked up Newsweek and found a story about clean diamonds by Alicia Barney. The 20 tons of waste per 18 karat gold ring and the pollution caused by mining has people talking.

Buoyed by the movie, “Blood Diamonds,” these cleaner karats are all the rage…in fact brides and brides to be “have seen an increase in political chatter lately…even women who already have their ring want to find out more about its history,” said Carley Roney, editor of The Knot, the wedding website.

“Sales at ecofriendly Brilliantearth.com, which offers ‘clean’ Canadian diamonds and recycled gold have more than tripled this past year. “We’re seeing people that like diamonds, and want to buy diamonds, and have recently learned about these issues,” said CEO Beth Gerstein. “It’s not just the vegan who does yoga every day.”

Greenkarat.com is another purveyor of guilt-free bling. They have a program where seniors turn in gold items donated by friends and family so that the young-uns can make shiny new wedding bands.