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Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals to be made from old electronics

Citius, altius, fortius, recyclius

The organising committee for the Tokyo 2020 Summer and Paralympic games has announced that medals at the games will be made from recycled electronics.

The committee has “invited the Japanese population to give to the organising committee its discarded or obsolete electronic devices in order to use the metal in the production of the medals that will be awarded to athletes at the Games.”

The plan is to collect 40kg of gold, 4,920kg of silver and 2,944kg of bronze, quantities the committee reckons will be boiled down into the 2,000kg of metals needed to produce the 5,000 medals to be awarded at the games.

Japanese carrier NTT DOCOMO will set up recycling stations at 7,000 stores to capture the required kit.

Perhaps Japanese residents will dump some old I‑Mode handsets into the recycling hoppers? Those pre-smartphone handsets took Japan by storm in the late 1990s, when they offered internet access at a then-sizzling 28.8 Kbps. ®

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