Japanese government has confirmed that all medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games will made from recycled smartphones and other electronics.
Here’s an aside you might not know – some of the most common press releases to hit the Bandwidth Blog newsdesk surround e-waste disposal. While that’s a necessary topic, one such headline caught our eye; Japan has announced that recycled smartphones (among other electronics) will be used to create Olympic and Paralympic medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games.
Last year the Japanese government invited citizens to join the initiative by donating unwanted devices. Previously, reports have estimated that over 16% of the world‘s gold and 22% of the world‘s silver resides in defunct electronics found all over Japan in the country‘s “˜urban mine‘ of discarded technology.
Read: Japan asks citizens to donate old electronics to craft 2020 Olympic medals
Tokyo 2020 sports director Koki Murofushi, in conversation with the BBC, stated that “A project that allows the people of Japan to take part in creating the medals is really good”, while US athlete and two-time Olympic gold medalist Ashton Eaton offered that “œAn Olympic medal is one of the most coveted items in existence. People spend decades, often agonizing ones, working to obtain one. The life stories of so many are deï¬ned by the pursuit of these metal medallions, and those same stories are what inspire and bring millions of us together.”
Eaton continued to say that “…Thanks to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Medal Project not only do the athletes inspire with their stories, but each medal itself has a story of its own! The best part is that each citizen has a chance to contribute to the story, to raise awareness about a sustainable future and to make a unique contribution. And, most excitingly, they have a chance to be part of the Olympic journey.“
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The BBC reports that the materials used to create Olympic and Paralympic medals traditionally stem from mining firms – for the case of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Japanese government and the Olympic committee elected to undertake a recycling program to ‘work around’ Japan’s lack of mineral resources and promote the concept of sustainability.
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Source: BBC
