Diamonds are everyone’s favorite stones. Even though they are very expensive, most prefer them for their engagement rings. Diamonds are very durable stones that offer excellent brilliance and sparkle. If you go to a diamond store, you can see a lot of diamonds with different qualities. But have you ever thought about how the diamonds in a store reached there? Are you familiar with diamond mining and the environmental impacts associated with diamond mining? Do you know how much laborers have sacrificed their health and even life to mine the diamond that is comfortably sitting in your ring? In this article, we are discussing the environmental impacts associated with diamond mining and what you should do to raise your voice against diamond mining.
Diamond Mining Process
There are mainly four different types of diamond mining processes. Even though diamond mining processes do not use chemicals, there are still short-term and long-term environmental impacts associated with the diamond mining process. In open pit diamond mining, layers of rock and earth are removed and the diamond ores are taken out by blasting. The impacts of diamond mining are explained below.
Environmental Impacts Of Diamond Mining
The flora and fauna in the mining region are completely destroyed. The people and other animals who live there too have to relocate. This is called forced migration. Soil erosion is another problem associated with diamond mining. Due to the heavy deforestation, the soil can get easily eroded away. Other than environmental impacts, serious human rights violations are done in many diamond mines. Child labor, forced labor, ill-treatment of laborers, etc are some of the human rights abuses associated with diamond mines.
You may get disturbed after reading about these impacts of diamond mining, but that doesn’t mean that you have to give up on diamonds. If you want diamonds, you can go for lab-grown diamonds. Read below to find more about lab-grown diamonds.
Lab-Grown Diamonds
These are diamonds that are synthesized in a controlled environment in a laboratory. The technology is so advanced and it provides a diamond seed with the exact conditions (temperature, pressure, etc) required to grow into a diamond. These are real diamonds, which means that they have all the properties of a natural diamond. Unlike natural diamonds, lab-grown diamonds do not exploit nature for their production. Moreover, lab-grown diamonds are less expensive and easily available than natural diamonds.