Recycled phones will help manufacture medals for Tokyo 2020
Wednesday, August 24, 2016 - 16:30:10
Rio 2016 may have come and gone, but the power of the Olympics to capture the imagination of millions of people world-wide is enough to sustain interest in it in the intervening years between games. And when the event is hosted by the Japanese capital of Tokyo in 2020, there will be a central theme of technology and recycling, according to the organisers.
Tech Radar reports that the medals which are handed out to winners across the many different events will be created by recycling old mobile phones and extracting the precious metals they contain, rather than mining and refining them from scratch. This will help to reduce the carbon footprint of the games and also raise awareness as to the benefits of sustainable e-waste policies on a global scale.
Japan has become one of the world’s leading homes for electronics and experts estimate that almost a quarter of all the silver and 16 per cent of the gold in the world is tied up in the millions of devices that are owned within this one country alone.
While there is a long time to go before the next Olympics, those in charge are already encouraging businesses to get involved and set up their own recycling schemes so that unwanted smartphones, games consoles, computers and gadgets of all kinds can be collected to be recycled and turned into medals.
Each year it is estimated that up to 143kg of gold and 1566kg of silver are simply thrown away in Japan as a result of people disposing of old electronics. And since just 9.6kg of gold and 1210kg of silver were required to produce the medals used during London 2012, it is easy to see how quickly the necessary resources could be collected just by promoting mobile recycling.
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