What Crystals Are Ethically and Sustainably Sourced?
The terms ‘ethical’ and ‘sustainable’ are often improperly used when describing the sourcing of crystals. When a business claims its crystals have been ‘ethically and sustainably sourced’, it means the raw material has been mined in accordance with certain principles—ostensibly, anyway. Those principles include the nature and extent of the environmental impact of the mining, its effect on the people involved (and those who are impacted by the mining), and a proper accounting for the way natural resources have been used.
The Misinformation Around Ethically Sourced Crystals
When you search for “ethically sourced crystals” on Google, you are met with a deluge of businesses that purport their products to meet this standard. The first thing I do when I encounter all this is look at what they are selling. A while back, I came across an Instagram post from a woman selling lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. Her profile stated that all her crystals were “ethically and sustainably” sourced. The post said that the family that was selling the material to her owned the mine from which it had come. Having sold and written about lapis lazuli for over twenty years, I know that’s not true.
Examining the Reality of Afghan Lapis Lazuli Mining
The only place in Afghanistan where lapis lazuli is mined, located high in the Hindu Kush mountains, is the Sar-e Sang mine. This made me curious about the claim of the jewelry maker who told me she uses lapis from Afghanistan. I sent her a message to clarify her sourcing. When I asked if she got the stones directly from Afghanistan or from someone who had been to the mine, she replied that she couldn’t say much because her suppliers are “protected.” But then she went on to give quite a bit of detail about them and about the conditions under which the lapis is mined.
The Ethical Issues with Lapis Lazuli Mining
“We don’t use dynamite, which can dig crystals out in seconds. So our method takes years. So this stock now was mined a while ago. You also have to consider the unethical side of buying. This is their entire livelihood and by not buying lapis out of ‘principle’ it’s kind of unethical too. They are starving!!” Despite saying everywhere that she trades that her crystals have been “ethically and sustainably sourced,” she really didn’t know what she was talking about. There is no “old mine.” Lapis lazuli has been mined at Sar-e Sang for at least 6,500 years, and dynamite is used to expose new veins.
The Difference Between Conflict and Conflicted Minerals
The “big ethical sellers” are not selling conflict minerals, they are selling conflicted minerals. Malachite is not a mineral sourced from conflict; lapis lazuli is. Yet lapis is the sort of mineral which makes for an “ethical purchase,” as per the US standard for an ethical purchase.
The Reality of Mining in Poor Countries
They don’t exist. There are no large ethical suppliers because most respectable businesses that trade in rocks and minerals understand how improbable it is to find such materials when mining practices and living conditions are taken into account. Nonetheless, many of the “crystals” sold come from some of the world’s poorest and most destitute places. Madagascar’s mines, for instance, only shift the vast quantities of quartz and other specimens (which are supposed to be “charged” or “powerful”) because 29 percent of the population (including large numbers of the 85,000 children who work in mines) is desperate enough to take on that work.
Child Labor and Unsafe Conditions in Mining Operations
In the Democratic Republic of Congo and some parts of India, kids work in the mines. In a lot of other countries, mining is just as dangerous, and workers there might be lucky to make a few dollars a day. Most of the toxic materials mined worldwide come from China, where mining is a hazardous occupation, and human rights are a thing of the past. Myanmar produces jade, among other mined materials, and the methods used there are associated with serious human rights violations and lots of environmental degradation. Mining is barely regulated, and very small children can be found working in some of these operations.
The Dark Side of Lapis Lazuli Trade in Afghanistan
The lapis lazuli seller I spoke with bought her stone more than three years ago, during 2019 or 2020. For many years now, the mining of lapis lazuli has been funding Islamic extremism. In 2013, the Taliban and other armed groups earned over twenty million dollars from lapis lazuli. Yet, here we have a seller saying that unless you are “on the ground,” you really don’t know what’s going on with the lapis lazuli trade in Afghanistan. Well, it seems like she knows enough to be selling lapis lazuli. So, if you’re educated enough to sell it, why not be educated enough to know whether the trade impacts your potential customers by funding terrorism?
Crystal Sellers and the Marketing of Ethical Sourcing
Many retailers have the buzzwords down pat. They know the terms that consumers want to hear, and they use them. The problem, of course, is that behind the shiny marketing facade, the reality is often quite different. Most retailers and suppliers don’t have any clue about the conditions under which the materials they work with were obtained. They just trust what their suppliers tell them. And many of those suppliers too are just passing along what was told to them. They don’t have any actual evidence to show that the materials they work with are conflict-free.
The Realities of Crystal Sourcing and Profit in Mining
Some rocks and minerals can now be extracted without restriction, but the profits from them are negligible, and the working conditions are dangerously unsafe. The real cash flow occurs when these resources are sold to neighboring countries. Afghanistan is not a war zone today; the war more or less ended when British and American forces largely withdrew in 2021. The country is now in a deep-rooted crisis and is run largely by extremists who have a not-so-secret fondness for both terrorism and fear as the centerpieces of their governance.
The Lack of Transparency in Crystal Sourcing
I’d like to tell you about my interaction with this supplier because there is so much misinformation and lack of knowledge about crystals that are ethically and sustainably sourced. When you inquire of a supplier in places like China, Pakistan, India, or Indonesia about whether or not their products come from ethical, sustainable sources, what kind of answer can you really expect? A few months ago, I had a conversation with the largest distributor of crystals from Madagascar, a man who has dealt in crystals for many years and who is a regular trader at the Tucson Mineral Show, the largest rock and mineral fair in the world.
The Difficulty in Sourcing Crystals Ethically and Sustainably
Sourcing crystals in an ethical and sustainable way is a hard thing to do. Many small business owners now claim they have done this very thing and say their crystals are ‘conscientiously sourced’ or ‘lovingly chosen.’ While working on this article, I saw a post on social media that promoted a new crystal shop in London. This new shop claims to have crystals that are ‘ethically and sustainably sourced.’ I checked out their website, and it had lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, jade from Myanmar, and a range of other crystals from Madagascar. The shop also featured mica but was shady about the sourcing.
The Ethics of Mica Sourcing and Child Labor
Sixty percent of the world’s mica comes from India, where 20,000 children labor in its mines. Businesses in the wellness sector—my own included—buy their mica from Brazil. But this isn’t a primer on why that is necessary or right. This is about the reason so many businesses in the peace, happiness, and wellness industries shy away from the mica supply chain and look for alternatives in the lovely and shiny sectors of the peace, happiness, and wellness industries.
Transparency in Crystal Sourcing: Tracking and Tracing Claims
If a retailer is to claim that their products have been ethically and sustainably sourced, they must pinpoint exactly where the raw materials were gotten and by whom. In many instances, that’s simply not feasible. I stumbled upon yet another company that purported to sell only ethically and sustainably sourced crystals. They offered tracking and tracing of all of their products. Naturally, I inquired about one of their items: Did they have any first-hand knowledge of where the lapis lazuli used for their elephant carvings was mined? The response I got was, well, something. You can hear about my run-in in a different blog post.
The Realities of Mining in Brazil: Unsafe Working Conditions
Increasingly, crystal sellers are sourcing their wares directly from Brazil. While it is not common for children to work in Brazil’s mines, the miners themselves work under conditions that are not safe and that pay very little. Ventilation is poor, and the temperature extremes are very hard to endure. Even the most dedicated miner would have a hard time working without the safety measures that every employer should be required to provide. And those measures should cover a host of pretty dangerous “too baddies”: failure to cover serious ventilation problems, failure to say anything about the temperature problems, and refusal to acknowledge that air, temperature, and the mine’s design may not be conducive to the miner’s health or safety.
Environmental and Social Impacts of Mining
Mining adversely affects the environment in a number of ways. It causes deforestation, especially in the tropics; it can lead to erosion, especially of old mines; and it can, and does, in a number of places, lead to the pollution of soil and water—rivers and streams. Despite these pretty serious impacts, every wholesaler I’ve done business with in Brazil—and it’s quite a few at this point—has told me that their materials are ethically and sustainably sourced. Coakley mentions cobalt specifically, and that’s appropriate, because cobalt is vital to so many electric components that it might as well be the tech industry’s blood mineral.
Is the Crystal Industry Ethical?
Are you discouraged from purchasing crystals by the dubious morality of some of the companies selling them? Do those companies reassure you that the rock you are about to buy comes from an impeccable source? Gold mining, for example, is one of the most harmful and socially destructive processes on the planet. If it isn’t ethical to wear gold without knowing for sure that it was sourced sustainably, then could the same not be said for wearing something as ostensibly innocuous as a crystal? Indeed, the entire discussion of crystals as “ethical” seems related to their healing powers. Crystals are so widely used for their supposed recuperative purposes that it is hard to think of an alternative to their use—unless one wants to become a Gollum-like figure, obsessively hoarding every kind of earth mineral.
The Rise of Ethical Crystal Sourcing Claims
Since 2002, I’ve been part of this industry, and for the most part, I’ve been in this niche, writing about rocks and minerals. The phrase “ethically and sustainably sourced” first came to my attention in 2017. Just a few years later, I would say the vast majority of businesses in the United Kingdom that sell crystals claim their products have been sourced in this manner.