Dispatches

The Real Price of Gold (2011x19)

: 27, 2011

Dispatches challenges the British gold jewellery industry to come clean about where the gold in their jewellery comes from. Businesswoman Deirdre Bounds, who ran a successful ethical travel company, reveals what's wrong with the industry and goes on the road to present her unique take on how things could be done very differently. Secretly filming at Britain's biggest high street jewellery chains, Bounds exposes shop assistants giving vastly misleading information about where the gold in their jewellery is mined. Then, unable to get a straight answer from the stores, Bounds travels to the source: to the mines. In Senegal, she meets a child miner and reveals his hazardous daily existence at an illegal mine. She also looks at allegations that a large-scale industrial mine in Honduras has caused hair loss and rashes in the local population. Shocked by what she's seen and the lack of traceability in the supply-chain, Bounds sets out to find how things could be done better. In her search to find an alternative, she explores newly-launched Fairtrade and Fairmined gold and also how recycling old gold could offer an answer. Going undercover, she finds one of Britain's largest gold manufacturers not living up to their pledge to support ethical alternatives. And she asks the British public to back her campaign to clean up the British jewellery industry.