Your discarded smartphone could become part of Olympic history.
Japan plans to use recycled smartphone metals to make the next generation of gold, silver, and bronze medals for the Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo in 2020.
Japan is not a resource rich country, so it wants to spread awareness about e-waste by tapping the country’s urban mine to recycle electronics.
Japan’s electronic recycling produces more than enough precious metal for the Olympic medals
Japan generates approximately 650,000 tons of e-waste a year. This huge amount of e-waste generated by the country would provide enough precious metals to make the Olympic medals.
Approximately 9.6 kg of gold, 1,210 kg of silver, and 700 kg of copper were used to make winning medals for the 2012 Olympic games in London. This quantity is much less than the 143 kg of gold, 1,566 kg of silver, and 1,112 tons of copper recovered by Japan in 2014 from e-waste.
