Cleo Escarez Is Making Urban Mining Mainstream — Starting With Your Jewelry Box

When a recent Seattle news segment spotlighted a local woman “touting urban mining and turning old jewelry into precious metals for electronics,” something clicked across the city. Viewers suddenly saw what Cleo Escarez, founder and CEO of Redyoos, has been championing for years:

The gold needed for clean‑tech, AI, and everyday electronics isn’t trapped in distant mines — it’s hiding in our homes.https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-woman-touts-urban-mining-turning-old-jewelry-into-precious-metals-for-electronics

The segment didn’t just highlight a clever idea. It revealed a climate solution hiding in plain sight — and the woman building the infrastructure to scale it.

From a TV Spotlight to a Citywide Call to Action

In the clip, a Seattle resident held up a tangled chain and a single earring — the kind everyone has in a drawer — and explained that these forgotten pieces contain the same gold used in circuit boards, EV batteries, and semiconductor components.

It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a wake‑up call.

People learned, in real time, that:

• Jewelry is one of the highest‑yield sources of recoverable gold

• Most households unknowingly store valuable metals

• Mining our homes is cleaner, faster, and far more ethical than mining the earth

And they learned that Redyoos exists to make that shift easy, accessible, and community‑powered.

Urban Mining: The Climate Solution Hiding in Plain Sight

Urban mining isn’t new — but Redyoos is making it mainstream.

Instead of relying on high‑emission, high‑impact extraction, Redyoos recovers gold and silver from pre‑loved jewelry and returns those metals to domestic clean‑tech supply chains.

The impact is immediate:

• Lower carbon emissions

• Less dependence on unstable global mining markets

• More resilient U.S. manufacturing

• Fewer precious metals lost to landfills

It’s circularity you can literally hold in your hand.

Why Jewelry Is the Perfect Starting Point

The news segment underscored what Cleo Escarez has been teaching through Redyoos:

Jewelry is the most overlooked, highest‑impact entry point for urban mining.

A single broken necklace can contain more recoverable gold than pounds of discarded electronics. And unlike e‑waste, jewelry doesn’t require complex disassembly — it’s ready for recovery the moment it arrives.

Redyoos turns that simplicity into climate action.

Seattle Leads, the Nation Follows

Since the segment aired, Seattle residents have been reaching out with stories of:

• inherited pieces they never wore

• broken items they didn’t know how to recycle

• jewelry uncovered during moves or estate cleanouts

• donations they assumed thrift stores could process

Redyoos intercepts these items before they’re lost to the waste stream, transforming them into high‑purity metals that support:

• clean‑tech manufacturing

• electronics production

• ethical jewelry makers

• domestic supply resilience

Seattle is proving what’s possible when a city embraces its “urban mine.”

A Founder’s Mission, Now in the Spotlight

What began as Cleo Escarez’s determination to reduce the environmental and human cost of precious‑metal extraction has grown into a movement reshaping how communities think about value, waste, and climate action.

The news segment didn’t just highlight her work — it validated a truth she’s been championing:

Before we harm the planet, we should mine our jewelry boxes.

Redyoos is turning that belief into infrastructure, impact, and a new cultural norm — one where communities, not corporations, hold the keys to a more ethical and resilient materials future.