As Good as Gold

 Take a look at your jewelry box. Do you know where all that gold came from? The lattice brooch, well that's from your great aunt Shirley. What about those Spanish doubloons? Those are from your stint as a pirate, right? Seriously though, we all may receive or purchase several pieces of jewelry over our lifetimes without access to information on how they were manufactured. It's part of creating a green home and lifestyle you may not have considered!

Now the big box retailer Wal-Mart, of all places, is leading the way in promoting environmentally friendly jewelry with the introduction of their new Love, Earth line. "It's the first time ever that we, or any major mass retailer, have been able to provide customers with a way to trace the path of their product from the mine it was actually mined from to the shelf," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Tara Raddohl told Reuters. The line of 10K gold and sterling silver jewelry will come from mines that meet Wal-Mart's sustainability standards including safe waste disposal and respect for employee rights (respect for employees, hmm?). Customers who purchase the jewelry can go online to the store's website and find out exactly where it came from. The Love, Earth line isn't Wal-Mart's only sustainable effort. Chief Executive Lee Scott has set a goal of one day being a zero waste enterprise.

Would a product line like Love, Earth affect your shopping decisions? And do you think you can really trust Wal-Mart? [Reuters]