2020 Tokyo Olympic Medals To Be Made Out Of Recycled Electronic Devices

The organisers on Wednesday unveiled that the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympic medals shall be made from donated metal wastes i.e. from mobile phones and other devices donated by the people of Japan. The Tokyo Olympic organisers called on the public to donate old phones and other electronic devices to help make the medals for the 2020 games.

Further adding to it, the organisers said that “it is our step towards sustainable development and save costs to the event which is currently estimated to be around $26.5 Billion at one point”.

The organising committee hopes to gather 8 tonnes of metal which includes gold, silver and bronze metals starting from April. In the end, they added to the fact that the collected 8 tonnes metal waste from the people would ultimately result in 2 tonnes of usable metal which would be sufficient to make the whole lot of 5,000 Olympic and Paralympic Medals.

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Sports director Koji Murofushi said that since the availability of resources on earth is quite limited, this is their idea of recycling. And giving the things a new purpose will make everyone think about the environment.

Collection boxes will be installed from April in all the local offices and telecom stores of NTT DoCoMo Inc. They are partnering with Japan Environmental Sanitation Center for the project. The officials are hoping for a smoother progress leading up to the event in 2020. They beat Madrid and Istanbul to host the events.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe scrapped plans for the main stadium in July 2015 when protests erupted over its $2 billion price tag. They also had to change their Olympic logo after they were accused of plagiarism. Some French prosecutors launched an investigation into whether Tokyo bribed to be able to win the bid. But, the Japanese officials have denied any wrongdoing.

This is a great step towards recycling the electronic waste. Let us hope that further controversies do not mar the preparation for the games.