Judging from London’s 2012 Olympics, only 9.6kg of gold, 1,210kg of silver and 700kg of copper were needed to make all the winning medals.
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Vice chairman of the British Olympic Association Sir Hugh Robertson believes the extra cash, which is supplemented by National Lottery funding, will be vital in preparing for the next eight-year cycle to include the Tokyo Games in 2020 and the so far unawarded Games in 2024. The organisers are considering delving into Japan’s “urban mine” to accumulate gold, silver, and bronze rather than approaching mining corporations.
Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike brought the Olympic flag to Japan from Brazil on Wednesday and called for all parties to work together to host a successful Summer Games in 2020. That came to 315 lbs. of gold; 3,452 lbs. of silver; and 1,112 tons of copper through electronics in 2014 alone.
Partly recycled materials were used for the medals for the Rio 2016 Olympics.
To combat this, Kuroda is simply calling for more electronics to be recycled. In fact, it is estimated that the country has 16 per cent of the world’s gold reserves and 22 per cent of the silver, more than countries that mine for the stuff. In order to collect enough materials for the “urban mine” of e-waste to cover the Olympic medal project, a group of Olympic organizers, government officials, and company executives is looking for companies to “propose a concrete collection proposal” that can be implemented in the near future. While Japan’s electronic recycling produces more than enough precious medal each year to forge the Olympic prizes, most of that material is already being used to create yet more electronics.
The sustainable drive could make good use of Japan’s heritage as an electronics leader but first it will have to create a collection system capable of gathering the tonnes of valuable goods discarded by consumers.
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By comparison, Japan discards 650,000 tons of small electronics and home appliances every year. “If this public-private cooperation progress, the collection of electronic waste should also progress”.
