Japan is looking to recycle old technology, including smartphones, to create Olympic medals for Tokyo 2020.
The report comes from Japanese website Nikkei, which claims organizers of the next Olympic Games would like gold, silver and bronze medals to be sourced purely from donated electronics.
It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds: our smartphone are full of the gold, silver and copper that can be recycled for use in creating new electronics, but Japan is looking to use it to make the most iconic medals in sport.
A new mine
It’ll mean the country won’t need to mine new metals and can instead use what’s referred to as Japan’s “urban mine” of discarded consumer tech. It’s estimated 16% of the world’s gold and 22% of the planet’s silver is currently sitting inside tech all over Japan.
The Olympic committee is asking Japanese firms to pitch ideas for recycling schemes to help encourage citizens to donate – if the scheme is successful it would mean the usual practice of getting precious material mines to donate the metal for the medals would cease, or at least be dramatically reduced.
The London Olympic games used 9.6kg of gold, 1,210kg of silver and 700kg of copper (the main ingredient used when making bronze) to make its medals in 2012. In 2014, Japan discarded 143kg of gold, 1,566kg of silver and 1,112 tons of copper through electronics.
The reason so much silver is needed is that the gold medals are made up of that material too, with gold added into the mix to create the distinction. Similarly, tin is used in the bronze medals, so multiple materials will need to be sourced to create fully recycled medals.
To know part of your old smartphone has now become one of the most iconic medals in sport may be enough to persuade people to donate their phone to the cause.
However, there’s the slight issue that the current recycling of these precious materials in Japan goes to making new electronics, and it’s hard to see the citizens of the nation deciding to not buy any more new electronics for a year to help out.
Via Engadget
Source: techradar.com
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The only thing i can think of is; We're pretty much giving our resources to athletes that just wear it as jewelry, when it could be reused for future technology. It doesn't make sense to me, why olympians even NEED real metals when it could be put to a much better use.