Past Olympic medals, including those awarded in Rio, have been made partially from recycled materials.
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The Olympic flag has arrived in Tokyo, the host city of the next Olympic games in 2020.
The Tokyo Games have been hit by series of issues including the scrapping of plans for the main stadium, which have led to delays in construction, and plagiarism allegations which have forced organisers to ditch the original logo for the Games. And this includes how – and with what – the Games’ most coveted prizes are produced. Using the tiny bits of gold, silver, and other precious metals found inside smartphones, tablets, and other electronics would make up for Japan’s lack of mineral resources and-according to Nikkei-bolster Japan’s Olympic theme of a “sustainable future”. Olympic gold medals are actually produced from silver with a minuscule amount – roughly 1.2 percent – of gold plating added for good measure. This trend remains consistent across silver and bronze (copper). A bronze medal is worth just two bucks and change.
The London Olympic Games in 2012 used 9.6 kg of gold, 1,210 kg of silver and 700 kg of copper to make their medals.
It shouldn’t be a problem then, right? However, with the demand for silver high, it is unclear whether Japan will be able to recycle enough silver by the Games in 2020. Japan’s municipalities required by the Environment Ministry to collect at least 1kg of small consumer electronics per person a year, but many are still falling short of gathering even 100 grams per person. On the other hand, you’d be hard-pressed to find paper, plastic or glass making their way into Japanese landfills.
Those shiny metals that our athletes have been swooning over at Rio’s Olympic Games could soon be made from recycled electronics.
While a 2014 United Nations University report congratulated Japan on being “an early adopter in the development and enforcement of a legal mechanism for e-waste”, the country still has a long way to go.
“A collection system should be created by the private sector, and central and local governments should be in charge of publicizing such private services”, Takeshi Kuroda, president of ReNet Japan Group, which works together with Olympic Games organizers to make medals from e-waste, said in a statement.
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By raising public awareness, the amount of electronic waste that is collected and recycled could be increased. This collection of e-waste is sometimes referred to as an “urban mine”.
