The Jewelry Glossary Project is in alignment with the “recycled gold” and “reprocessed gold” definitions created by the Precious Metals Impact Forum.
RECYCLED GOLD: Gold recovered from any product containing less than 2% of gold in weight, destined to be discarded, and returned to a refiner or other downstream intermediate processor to begin a new life cycle as “recycled gold”. Freshly mined material, including tailings and any wastes and by-products of mining operations are excluded from this section.
REPROCESSED GOLD: Gold produced from any product containing more than 2% of gold in weight with the purpose of changing its state (e.g., bullion melted to create jewelry, jewelry melted to become a bar being sent to a refinery, unsold or used or broken jewelry being melted to create new jewelry or a different type of product, sputtering targets, manufacturing scraps, …).