The greenest men’s ring is probably sitting in a sock drawer somewhere, Gold doesn’t wear out. It can be melted and made into something new as many times as anyone likes, and a lot of men getting married now are doing exactly that with the family gold, rather than buying a band made from metal that came out of the ground last year.
We’d go as far as saying it’s the most stylish option too. A ring made from a grandfather’s wedding band carries something that a brand-new one from a high-street chain can’t, and it costs the planet next to nothing.
Why Old Family Gold Makes The Best Sustainable Ring
Mining gold is filthy work. Earthworks, the American group that ran the No Dirty Gold campaign, reckoned a single 18-carat ring under an ounce leaves behind at least 20 tonnes of waste rock, some of it soaked in cyanide along the way. Old gold has already paid that price once, decades ago, so reusing it doesn’t add to the pile.
Most independent jewellers will remake it. Hatton Garden in London has plenty of workshops that do this sort of job, as does Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, and so do a good many high-street jewellers around the country. The old ring is melted, cleaned up, and cast or hand-forged into whatever you want: a plain court band, a flat signet ring, something wider with a brushed finish.
When There Isn’t Enough Gold In The Old Ring
Wedding rings from the fifties and sixties were often thin, so one old ring may not stretch to a chunky men’s band. The usual fix is to add some recycled gold of the same carat, which keeps the whole thing made from reused metal. Bring along any broken chains or odd earrings from the same drawer, as they can go in too.
The Hallmark On A Remade Ring
Any gold ring over a gram that’s sold in the UK has to be hallmarked by one of the four assay offices, and a remade ring goes through the same process as a new one. So the finished piece gets a fresh hallmark showing its carat and the maker, the same as any new ring. Most jewellers will also engrave the original wedding date inside the band if you’d like it kept.
One thing to check before handing anything over is whether they’ll keep your gold separate. Some workshops pool everyone’s scrap and give back the same weight, which is perfectly normal practice, but rather misses the point if the idea is to wear grandad’s actual gold.
Recycled Or Fair mined Gold When There’s Nothing To Remake
Not every family has a drawer like that. For everyone else, recycled gold is the easy choice, and plenty of jewellers now use it as standard without charging a penny more. It’s refined until it’s identical to new gold, so it looks and wears the same.
Fairmined gold is the one to ask for if you want newly mined metal. It comes from small mines that have to meet rules on safety, child labour and chemicals, and there are licensed Fairmined jewellers in the UK, though you’ll pay more and the choice of designs is smaller.
The Wood And Meteorite Bands Turning Up At Weddings
These are the rings that have changed how men’s jewellery looks over the past few years. Most come from small makers on Etsy or at craft fairs, and a lot of them are one-offs:
- Whisky cask oak set into a titanium or recycled silver band, which suits anyone fond of a dram.
- Old skateboard decks, sliced so the coloured layers of maple show as stripes.
- Iron meteorite, etched so the criss-cross crystal pattern comes up on the surface.
- Titanium on its own, very light but almost impossible to resize, so get measured properly.
Silicone bands get lumped in with these, but they’re more of a gym ring than a fashion piece, and we wouldn’t wear one to a wedding.
The wood ones need looking after. Take them off for the washing-up and don’t leave them sitting in a hot bath.
What To Wear A Sustainable Ring With
A wood or meteorite band suits most daytime weddings, a registry office do or a summer garden party. For an evening wedding with a cocktail attire dress code, a slim band in recycled gold, or a meteorite inlay with a polished edge, sits nicely with a dark suit and doesn’t take attention away from the couple. Black tie calls for the plainest gold ring you’ve got, and a remade family band fits that brief better than anything else on this list.
