The unsparkly side of making jewelry

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit a jewelry factory for the first time. This wasn't a high-end factory that fashions pieces out of precious metals and semi-precious stones. Instead, it was a factory that churns out the very trendy costume jewelry that's found in women's fashion stores everywhere.

My first impression was that the factory was much smaller than any other I'd ever been to before. Unlike clothing factories that are several floors tall with multiple, long production lines next to one another, the jewelry factory was very modest, with only a handful of tables around which workers performed their tasks.

It was also remarkably more quiet than a typical clothing factory where the whir of sewing machines or knitting machines is ever-present in the background. In this facility, there was hardly any sound and each worker simply sat at her station - polishing stones, searching for imperfections on beads or linking plastic "jewels" together.

The factory was also spotless. Whereas clothing factories tend to have stray pieces of fabric and thread floating around, the floors of this facility were free of any debris. And I found the raw materials storage to be interesting. Instead of huge shelves with bolts of fabric, there was a simple room with plastic jars filled with different colored and shaped beads and rolls of chains and ribbon.

So, overall, it was a good factory ... until I stuck my nose in the back. Adjacent to the factory was another room that was poorly lit and filthy. I asked the production manager what was happening in this room and he explained that it was legally a separate factory, even though it was housed in the same building. Without any distinctive sign or a separate entrance, it was hard for me to believe that it truly was a separate factory. And to outsiders, there really is no way to differentiate one from another.

We decided to walk through this second factory, even though it wasn't technically the one we were auditing. The air was think with cigarette smoke and cigarette butts were strewn all over the floor. Unlike the other factory's production tables, this factory's was smaller, with more workers cramped around it. A few workers seemed to be doing their tasks while seated on the floor and there were piles of trash accumulating in the corners.

Another room had four men casting metals for intricate pieces. They sat at their stations, fixed the rubber casts together and poured molten-hot liquids into the centrifuge, creating mixed-metal pieces. Other workers in this room were polishing these metal pieces furiously.

Three men in another room were filing down beads onto a huge, whirring sander. As we entered, the woman in charge of this section of the factory handed out flimsy masks and gloves to the workers. Clearly, they hadn't been wearing any personal protective equipment before our arrival.

In yet another room, large drums spun rocks and water together, creating stones for jewelry with smooth edges. A man in flip-flops loaded the machines, added chemicals to create the desired effects, and released the water onto the ground and down a drain - one that seemed to go directly into the ground below the facility without being treated.

In the final room we walked through, workers concentrated as they used tiny soldering instruments to fuse chains and metal pieces together. Without any eye protection, I had to wonder if they were in any danger from leaning into such a dangerous-looking activity.

The two factories were night-and-day and it was shocking to see how deplorable the conditions were in the second factory. I can't say for certain that it truly is a second factory, but the one we visited showed us the separate business licenses and rental agreements. Even so, the poorer factory may be a raw materials supplier to the one we contract with - definitely something to look out for.

And walking through the factory's boardroom, I saw samples from almost every major women's clothing and accessories retailer in the US. It produces beautiful work and obviously supplies many brands, but my visit highlighted for me some of the riskier aspects of working in the accessories business.