What is Dirty Gold?
A gift of gold often symbolizes love, commitment, romance, and friendship.
Yet gold mining is one of the most destructive activities in the world and has been linked to grievous environmental, social justice, and human rights violations.
Dirty Gold’s Impact
Most consumers don’t know where the gold in their products comes from or how it is mined. Gold mining can displace communities, contaminate drinking water, hurt workers, and destroy pristine environments. It can pollute water and land with mercury and cyanide, endangering the health of people and ecosystems.
Gold mining produces three million times more waste than gold.
Gold mining operations have displaced people from their homelands against their will, destroyed traditional livelihoods, impacted people’s health, and damaged ecosystems. Indigenous People, in particular, disproportionately suffer the harmful effects of gold mining, adding to the injustices they already endure.
Gold Mining Is Unnecessary. There Are Alternatives.
Reducing mining’s ecological and human footprint is essential. One way we do that is to promote alternatives to mining. For instance, 92 percent of gold goes into boxes and bank vaults for jewelry and investments. Only eight percent is used for technology. Recycling could also meet the world’s technological demand for gold and 45 percent of current jewelry demand.
Communities Fight Back Against Dirty Gold
Toxic pollution from Barrick Gold’s Pueblo Viejo mine is threatening families in the Dominican Republic. Contaminated rivers force residents to rely on bottled water, while hundreds demand safe relocation and fair compensation. A second dam now puts even more communities at risk.
Watch the video and sign the petition to demand safety, dignity, and justice.
Demand Justice: Relocate Communities Harmed by Toxic Gold Mining Waste
In the Dominican Republic, people living near toxic waste from the world’s sixth-largest gold mine are demanding a dignified and just relocation. This includes moving communities to a safer place and providing fair payment for their homes, land, crops, and livelihoods.
Sign on now to demand that government officials relocate impacted communities and negotiate in good faith.