- The Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals are made entirely from recycled electronics.
- Organizers gathered over 47,000 tons of tech waste to create them.
- Japanese citizens donated over five million cell phones for the effort.
This year, the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is in charge of presenting the gold, silver, and bronze medals—and they’re all made from recycled electronics. The Committee says it decided to create sustainable medals in an effort to build “an innovative future for all.”
Tokyo 2020 Medal Project officials shared that they hoped the results of the upcycling would create a lasting legacy and “contribute to an environmentally friendly and sustainable society.”
The process has been in the works since early 2017, when Japan announced it would collect old electronics and repurpose them into medals. Since then, the organizing committee has gathered over 47,000 tons of tech waste and more than five million cell phones in an effort to make the Games more sustainable.
Photo credit: BEHROUZ MEHRI – Getty ImagesThe committee collected around 70 pounds of gold, 7,700 pounds of silver, and 4,850 pounds of bronze—all from various donated electronic gadgets—to fashion approximately 5,000 medals for this year’s Games. The Japanese government recycled any source materials that weren’t used to make the medals.Tokyo took inspiration from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which implemented a similar method of reusing electronics (like TVs, computers, and keyboards) for their medals. For that effort, the Vancouver-based metal company Teck Resources teamed up with the Canadian Mint to create approximately 1,000 medals.