Why Recycle Gold?

Humans pollute the air in many ways, but the single most polluting activity undertaken on earth is mining for gold. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), mercury pollution from trash incineration, hazardous waste collection, and mercury mining combined still does not add up to half the total amount of mercury pollution created annually by gold mining globally.
However, the high percentage of gold recycling is attributed to the high value placed on the mineral. It has been estimated that 85 percent of all the gold ever mined can currently be accounted for. The missing 15 percent has either been lost or used in some kind of industrial process where it is cannot be readily retrieved.
http://sa-goldbuyers.blogspot.com/2013/08/why-recycle-gold.html