Used electronic devices have been recycled in a nationwide effort to produce the Olympic medals for the Tokyo 2020 Games. The project plans to set a precedent for future Olympic Games.As the athletes take the podium and, with a slight bow, have their medals placed around their necks, they will be happy to have landed in the top three. For the people behind the Tokyo Medal Project, they'll be happy that those Olympic medals are there in the first place.

The project capitalized on the fact that billions worth of precious metals such as gold and silver, which are used in electronic devices, gets discarded each year globally, thanks to people simply dumping or burning their gadgets instead of ensuring they are properly collected and recycled.

The medal was made from recycled smartphones and waste collected all over Japan.

There was a two-year national effort in Japan to collect enough recycled material  to produce about 5,000 bronze, silver and gold medals for 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Up to 90% of Japanese cities, towns, and villages participated by setting up donation pick-up sites where hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens donated their old electronic devices.  The recycling campaign produced 70 pounds (32 kilograms) of gold, 7,700 pounds of silver and 4,850 pounds of bronze. All from nearly 80 tons of small electrical devices such as old phones and laptops.

We can hope that other olympics will also follow the path of Japan Olympics 2020 in recycling wastes.

Source - https://www.dw.com/en/tokyo-2020-olympic-medals-made-from-old-smartphones-laptops/a-58325432