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Sea Change Radio

Did you know that a met­ric ton of elec­tron­ic waste can con­tain 8 to 16 ounces of gold? Whether we like it or not, pre­cious met­als show up in more than just that gold neck­lace or plat­inum ring we might have pur­chased – from the tita­ni­um used in our high-end moun­tain bikes, to plat­inum in our cell­phones, to sil­ver in our solar pan­els, pre­cious met­als are all around us. And the min­ing of these mate­ri­als often comes with a steep social and envi­ron­men­tal cost. This week on Sea Change Radio, we talk with an engi­neer who has cho­sen to remain anony­mous for fear of reprisal from his for­mer employ­er, a large gold-min­ing enter­prise. We learn about the use of water in the extrac­tion of pre­cious met­als, how com­mon min­ing prac­tices cre­ate haz­ardous slur­ry ponds, and the enor­mous amount of ener­gy required to car­ry out these oper­a­tions in remote loca­tions. Then, we dig deep into the Sea Change archives to hear from Jem Ben­dell about the unlike­ly inter­sec­tion between lux­u­ry and sustainability.