Four years ago, the organizers of Japan’s Olympic and Paralympic Games kicked off a campaign to create 5,000 medals out of discarded electronics.
“Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic medals will be made out of people’s thoughts and appreciation for avoiding waste,” said Japanese Olympic gold medalist gymnast Kohei Uchimura, “I think there is an important message in this for future generations.”
The campaign asked the Japanese public to donate unwanted electronics or e-waste, including smartphones, digital cameras, handheld gaming consoles and even laptops. Recycling centers would extract the precious metals in these devices, which will then be made into gold, silver, and bronze medals for the games.
According to digitaltrends, in just a year and a half, the e-waste-to-medal campaign received 47,488 tons of equipment and over 5 million mobile phones. This translated to 28.4 kg (62 lb) of gold (93.7% of the targeted 30.3 kg) and 3,500 kg (7,716 lb)of silver (85.4% of the targeted 4,100 kg).
The program was so successful that this year’s games will be the first Olympic and Paralympics to have all of the awarded medals be made from recycled electronic wastes.