Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic organizers are urging
people living in Japan to help make the medals for the games by donating their
discarded smartphones for recycling.
The Olympic Games are going to get a touch of recycling,
Japanese style. Tokyo will host the 2020 Games, and from next month, collection
boxes are going up all over the city for residents to donate old mobile phones,
computers and small household appliances. The idea is to collect enough metal
to make all 5,000 Olympic and Paralympic medals with recycled materials.
Discarded consumer electronics like smartphones and tablets
contain small amounts of precious and rare earth metals, including platinum,
palladium, gold, silver, lithium, cobalt and nickel. The Tokyo Games organising
committee says it hopes to accumulate as much as eight tonnes of metal,
including 40 kg of gold, 2,920 kg of silver and 2,994 kg of bronze.
The Tokyo Olympics sports director, Koji Murofushi, told
media that the project would allow all Japanese to take part in creating the
medals that will be hung around athletes’ necks: a truly Olympic upcycling
effort.