The 2020 Olympics is scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. The Tokyo Olympics committee has revealed that it will create its 2020 Olympics medals from recycled electronics.
Prior to this, recycled metals were used for gold and silver medals at the Rio Olympics in 2016 but these were produced using less than 30% recycled materials.
This will be the first time that gold, silver and bronze medals that will be placed around the necks of athletes at the 2020 Olympics will be made completely out of recycled metals. These medals will be made from the metals extracted from discarded cell phones and other small electronic devices.
In April 2017, the Tokyo Olympics committee launched a two-year campaign named “Everyone’s Medal” to collect discarded electronic devices from the public. The aim was to collect 30.3kg of gold, 4,100kg of silver and 2,700kg of bronze for the approximately 5,000 gold, silver and bronze medals.
The committee received nearly 80,000 tons of electronic waste, including old smartphones and laptops including 6.21 million cell-phones. Total 32 kg of gold, 3,500 kg of silver and 2,200 kg of bronze was extracted from the donated electronics.
Remaining amounts of metal required for making all Olympic and Paralympics medals can be extracted from the devices already donated.
