Regeneration, a Washington-based public utility company, converts abandoned mine waste in the Yukon and British Columbia river valleys into responsibly mined gold.
Regeneration, formed from the nonprofit Resolve, uses advanced re-mining technology to extract residual metals from historic placer sites while restoring rivers and habitats damaged by more than a century of mining.
“We should not let mine waste go to waste; we should see it as an opportunity,” said Stephen D’Esposito, president and CEO of Regeneration.
The regeneration projects began in Alaska and the Yukon, where decades of placer mining left behind piles of sediment that smothered salmon-bearing streams.
Remining tailings also makes it possible to recover critical minerals, such as cobalt and rare earth elements, that previous miners had overlooked or lacked the technology to extract them.
But perhaps most importantly, the company’s focus is on restoring the environment.
“Sometimes, days later, anadromous fish would come to a site,” says Carly Vynne, the company’s head of restoration and biologist. told CBC.
Vynne described how recontoured riverbeds and replanted vegetation have quickly brought fish back to once-arid creeks. To date, the company has restored 1,825 meters of streams and 20 hectares of upland habitat using proceeds from gold sales.
For brands like Mejuri, the partnership with Regeneration provides a bridge between environmental restoration and consumer expectations. The jeweler also released its latest Salmon Gold Collection last year.
The company’s mission has gained momentum as geopolitical and economic tensions drive gold prices higher.
Analysts attribute the metal’s record-breaking rally in October to a surge in safe-haven demand driven by worsening trade tensions between the US and China, including Beijing’s expanded export restrictions on rare earth metals and Washington’s threats of new tariffs and controls on technology exports.
Gold breached the $4,000 mark for the first time on October 8, rising steadily as investors fled volatile stock markets and a prolonged US government shutdown added to uncertainty.
D’Esposito acknowledges that while the environmental and commercial logic of remining is clear, the financial model is still evolving.
“There is no financial model that the market accepts for how you prove what is in your tailings,” he said. “Interestingly, it is not the industry’s job to mine waste.”
Yet the timing of Regeneration could hardly be better, as the gold market soars amid geopolitical turmoil and growing interest in ethically sourced metals.
“When a mine closes, it doesn’t have to be the end of the story,” D’Esposito emphasized.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, have no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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