Olympic and Paralympic medals for the Tokyo 2020 Games will be made from discarded or obsolete mobile phones.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday (1 February), the Tokyo 2020 organising committee invited the Japanese population to donate old electronic devices to use the metal to produce 5,000 medals that will be awarded to athletes at the Games.<\/p>\n
Metal for previous events has traditionally been sourced from mining companies.<\/p>\n
“This project highlights Tokyo 2020’s commitments to engage the whole Japanese nation and to offer to everyone the opportunity to play a role in the Games’ preparations. It also responds directly to Recommendation 4 of Olympic Agenda 2020 that states sustainability be integrated into all aspects of the planning and execution of the Games,” a statement from the committee said.<\/p>\n
The organising committee aims to collect as much as eight tons of metal (gold: 40kg, silver: 4,920 kg, bronze: 2,944 kg).<\/p>\n
Two partner companies were appointed at a Tokyo 2020 executive board meeting earlier Wednesday, NTT DOCOMO and Japan Environmental Sanitation Center. From April, collection boxes will be installed in more than 2,400 NTT DOCOMO stores and an undecided number of public offices throughout the country.<\/p>\n
The committee said that further details on the collection strategy will be announced in due course.<\/p>\n