Gold

Recycled gold plays a significant role in the global gold supply, contributing approximately 27% of global supply in 2020. While gold can be recycled from pre-and post-consumer feedstocks, most recycled gold comes from post-consumer jewellery, which is easier to process than gold found in electronic waste. Recycling gold from jewellery produces about

Gold recycling feedstocks

Pre-consumer gold scrap is generated during manufacturing processes, prior to reaching the consumer. This includes materials such as offcuts, defective items, and residues from industries like jewellery manufacturing and electronics production. Jewellery manufacturing is the most significant source of pre-consumer gold scrap.

Post-consumer gold scrap, on the other hand, originates from products that have completed their lifecycle and are discarded by end-users. This encompasses items like old jewellery, dental gold, and electronic waste. Gold is found in small quantities in printed circuit boards (PCBs) commonly found in TVs or phones, central processing units (CPUs) found in computers/laptops, and memory chips.

Similarly to pre-consumer scrap, jewellery remains the dominant source of post-consumer scrap. However, the recycling of electronic waste is gaining attention due to the valuable gold content in devices such as smartphones and computers. Efficient recovery from electronic scrap presents a significant potential recycling .

Additionally, in various developing countries, informal markets play a central role in e-waste recycling. Workers dismantle discarded electronics to recover valuable metals—particularly gold. In these regions, formal recycling infrastructure is often inadequate or inaccessible, leaving the task to loosely organized networks of informal workers. These individuals—frequently including children and migrants—engage in manual dismantling and crude chemical processes to recover valuable materials from electronics.

Recent discussions within the gold industry have raised concerns about the term “recycled gold,” which is often promoted as an ethical and environmentally friendly alternative to newly mined gold. However, investigations by NGO and industry organizations suggest that the label “recycled” is frequently applied to gold without clear traceability, potentially allowing gold from illicit sources to enter the market under the guise of sustainability.

Regulatory complexity and risks of corruption or illegal sourcing further complicate gold recycling operations. The supply chain is vulnerable to practices like mislabelling newly mined gold as recycled, exploiting weak definitions and traceability standards to bypass regulations and carbon accounting. Weak due diligence controls allow mixing of illicitly sourced or artisanal gold with recycled gold, making it difficult to ensure ethical and legal provenance.