Eco-friendly wedding rings, by popular demand

Despite being an utter techno-dork I do occasionally look at the statistics about who views this blog and I am interested to see that many people are searching for information about eco-friendly wedding rings.

For your benefit, then, here are some excerpts from the HTGMIG book about wedding rings in general:

Recycled precious metals

It's ironic to think that, sitting in bank vaults and under mattresses all over the world, lie thousands and thousands of tons of hoarded gold in the form of jewellery and also as ingots, or gold bars. Some say there is enough in these hidey-holes to keep the world's gold demand satisfied for anything up to 50 years without mining another ounce.

A large percentage of gold is used to make jewellery, but also we must remember that gold has been pegged to the world's economy for centuries. So it's an economic, as well as political hot potato.

Despite the hoarding, there is now quite a large market for recycled gold, made up mostly of old jewellery that has been melted down and refinished. The best way to ensure that your wedding and engagement rings are properly made from recycled precious metal is to supply a professional jeweller with some old jewellery of yours to be melted down and reused. With commercially produced recycled gold, although it's almost certainly respectable, it still doesn't come with precise knowledge of where it originated!

It may be that there are rings on one or other side of your families which could be remodelled and/or resized. Not only does this act as recycling of the jewellery, but also carries on a lovely tradition. I now wear the wedding ring that was my late mother's, and before that my late grandmother's. It dates back to my grandparents' wedding way back in…..oh, let's not go there, but it was a long time ago!


Non-metallic rings

A growing trend amongst avidly green enthusiasts is to forego precious metals altogether and instead have personalised weddings rings made out of wood. Now this idea, arguably is not necessarily that green when you consider that trees may have to be sacrificed in the production process. However I have found a good many wooden ring makers on the internet saying that they used only salvaged wood, and in any case with appropriate replanting even the creation of several million weddings rings is hardly going to raze a rain forest to the ground.

Much as this idea may sound like a bizarre – and potentially short-lived – choice of material, those who make wooden wedding rings usually supply owners with special wax to ensure their longevity.

Some of the designs are really quite beautiful, combining two or three bands of different woods together. Often the wood is locally sourced, and the makers will supply you with a full history of the forest, wood or copse from which your rings were derived. Others will make the rings for you from new or salvaged wood from the area in which you live, or in which your wedding is to take place. Nearly all are made by hand to your own design and at this time (late 2007) you can expect to pay between £50 and £100 per ring.

At this time (late 2007) there are only a couple of UK-based wooden wedding ring makers listed on Google, but as the trend grows I'm sure there will be more. Already there are a large number of such makers in North America, so it's only a matter of a short time before Britain follows suit!

And as time goes on more and more non-metallic alternatives are becoming available. For more information, key "non metallic wedding rings" into your favourite search engine.