We use metals in a lot of things, such as the medals given out to athlete at sporting events. However, huge and major events like the Olympics also means that a lot of metal will be required to make the variety of medals handed out to the winners at the games, but as you might have heard, the 2020 games at Toyko, Japan will be making a change.
It was announced earlier this year that the games will be using recycled electronics to create its medals, and if you’re wondering what that looks like, the video above should give you an idea of what to expect. The games will be requiring 5,000 medals where the Tokyo Organizing Committee went around Japan harvesting electronic products and the rare earth metals that were inside of them.
To date, they have managed to collect around 78,000 tons of electronics, which included 6 million smartphones, 32kg of gold, 3,500kg of silver, and about 2,200kg of bronze. We have to say that they look pretty good and you would never know that they were made from recycled electronics.
We’re not sure if this is a trend that we can expect to see in future Olympic games, but it is a pretty good idea and a good way to reuse our old and unused electronics, so hopefully we’ll see more events adopt this idea for the future.