2020 Tokyo Olympics Goes Green, Collects Old Phones to Produce Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals

Old cell phones, tablets, laptops and cameras will soon be melted down and shaped into medals to drape the necks of Olympic champions at the next summer games. But don't expect American swimmer Katie Ledecky to answer her newest gold medal should she hear a phone ring.

Officials for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo had a mission to create all awarded medals out of recycled materials. Japanese citizens were tasked with providing discarded electronics to make the concept possible.

"The idea of using recycled metals in medals has been used in the past," the Tokyo 2020 website reads. "However, this project makes Tokyo 2020 a first in the history of the Olympics and Paralympics by involving citizens in the collection of consumer electronics for the purpose of manufacturing medals, and manufacturing medals from the extracted gold."

The Tokyo 2020 Medal Project that began in 2017 successfully used drop-off locations throughout the country to collect mostly used electronic devices — digital cameras, cellular phones, laptops and other modern-day gadgets — to create enough medals for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games next summer. The country did enough within a year to create enough metal for the bronze medals to be awarded. Last week, the country completed the mission, generating enough gold and silver.

There were about 5 million discarded used cell phones among the 47,488 tons of material dedicated. The response in the last few months has been so strong that Japanese officials set March 31 as the cutoff date for any donations, according to Team USA.

The Olympic website stated its goal was to collect 30.3 kg of gold, 4,100 kg of silver and 2,700 kg of bronze to be extracted from donated devices.

The designs of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic medals will be released later this year, Tokyo 2020 said in a statement.

There will be approximately 5,000 medals produced — gold, silver and bronze — for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Japan took its cue from Brazil, which produced about 30 percent of its medals for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games from recycled metal. Japan set a goal of making 100 percent of its medals from recycled metal, in which they struck gold as an Olympic first. Some Japanese companies offered points to their customers if they participated in the medal project.

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