The report comes from Japanese website Nikkei, which says organizers of the next Olympic Games would like gold, silver and bronze medals to be sourced purely from donated electronics.
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Japan sold itself as a safe pair of hands to host the event and Abe pledged in Rio he would try to make it the best Games yet. Silver is in high demand, so it’s not clear if the country will be able to recycle enough silver in time for the Summer Olympics.
Image copyright Getty Images How does e-waste recycling work?
Scrap cars and home appliances such as fridges and air conditioners also contain these rarer metals, along with base metals, including iron, copper, lead and zinc.
The goal of the initiative is to create e-waste awareness in Japan, calling attention to the estimated 650,000 tons of old electronics consumers and companies throw away every year.
Japan is considering tapping into its mine of old consumer electronics to create Olympic medals made from the country’s e-waste. One possibility is to advertise it as a way for everybody to be a part of the Olympic Games.
The Olympic flag, carried by Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, arrived in the Japanese capital, the host city of the 2020 Olympic Games on Wednesday.
On the other hand, Super Mario’s appearance at the Rio Olympics helped boost Nintendo’s stocks which jumped at about 3.5% but is still second to Pokemon Go’s bump.
Inside those discarded items are valuable parts that can be mined for gold, silver and bronze.
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The proposal has already been discussed with industry insiders, government and organisers, and statistics have shown that 143kg of gold was recovered from the urban mine in 2014, compared with 9.6kg used to make the medals at the London Games.
