RI Says No To All Dirty Gold and Silver

Company's Fair Trade International Manufacturing Will Now Be Eco-Friendly

Santa Fe, NM: September 2, 2008: Starting in late August, 2008, all jewelry manufactured by Reflective Images will be fabricated with 100% recycled precious metal.

"Silver and gold mining causes tons of toxic sludge and is often tied to human rights abuses," said Marc Choyt, President of Reflective Images. "It is time to say No Dirty Gold and No Dirty Silver, creating ethical mine to market custody positively reflecting jewelry's emotional value."

Until now, ethical made, ecologically responsible jewelry has targeted the luxury market. Choyt's company manufactures mainly with silver for the middle class. "We aim to make eco-friendly jewelry the mass market standard, where it will have the greatest impact," he said.

Reflective Images' move involved consolidation of the companies supply chain, an analysis of thousands of pieces of inventory, and the logistically challenge of exporting of recycled precious metal to Indonesia, where the company works with a manufacturer that adheres to fair trade practices.

Reflective Images already runs its Santa Fe studio on green energy, purchases carbon offsets, and uses compact fluorescent lighting and recycled products. Their domestic production utilizes recycled precious metal, but the company, until now, could not match this standard in its outsourced component products.

"Internationally mined silver was the most lethal element in our supply chain and we wanted to eliminate it," said Choyt. Reflective Images is may be the first companies in the jewelry sector to supply their fair trade international manufacturer with recycled precious metals.

For the company, this is just one more of several pioneering efforts impacting the jewelry sector.. Because there is so much "green wash" and "fair wash," Reflective Images markets their product with complete transparency, using their "FRE" system. FRE means Fair, Responsible, Eco-Friendly. Customers can trace the origin of components and labor practices that make up a piece of jewelry on one of the company's websites, www.celticjewelry.com. This "open source" transparent tracking system, the first of its kind, is offered for free to the jewelry sector.

Choyt authors the trade and consumer resource, www.fairjewelry.org, google's top rated "fair trade jewelry" website. He published the Ethical Jewelry Handbook, a free resource e-book for jewelers; and spearheads the Madison Dialogue's International Manufacturing Standards Committee which is developing standards for fair trade jewelry manufacturing.

The companies' bridal collection of ethically source wedding rings can be found at www.fairjewelry.org.

Contact Marc Choyt: Tel: 505-988-7393 Ext. 12 or reflective@cybermesa.com