Tokyo Olympics medals are made of recycled metal extracted from 6.21 million cell phones

Playing at Olympics in itself is a great achievement for athletes, and winning a medal is an inexpressible moment. This year, joy of taking home a medal is doubled as medals are made considering environmental crisis. For first time in history- gold, silver, and bronze Olympic and Paralympic medals are produced from recycled small electronic devices including cell phones.

For past two years, Tokyo 2020 Medal Project collected 78,985 tons of electronic devices including 6.21 million cell phones from across Japan to produce 5,000 Olympic medals. With process of smelting, gold, silver, and bronze elements of devices were extracted from electrical devices.

According to official website of Tokyo Games, it's first time in Olympic history that medals were made using recycled metal, and first time that ordinary citizens have been involved in ir production.

Tokyo's sustainability projects

event's name and logo are recycled as organizers decided t to rebrand 2020 Games that was postponed amid COVID pandemic. While cardboard patterned beds have already made headlines as some orized that y are designed to prevent athletes from having sex. Later Olympic officials clarified that beds were provided because of ir sustainability and sturdiness.

podiums are made of recycled plastic and  Olympic torch has aluminium that was recycled from temporary housing used after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Games’ sustainability furr plan set a target of reusing or recycling 65% of waste generated during event, and organizers are also aiming to recycle or reuse 99% of goods procured for games.

Sustainability efforts are declining

Analysts quote that efforts of eco-friendly set up at Olympics are exaggerated. Sven Daniel Wolfe, lecturer, and researcher at University of Lausanne, Switzerland, has said, "Unfortunately, data show that sustainability in all dimensions is decreasing over time from 1992 to 2020".

Wolfe added, " decline is happening in spite of fact that environmentalism and sustainability is one of pillars of Olympic movement". 

Olympics have increasingly been questioned over ir lack of sustainability. For instance, in 2018, Olympic Stadium for Pyeongchang Olympics was made by spending $100 million which was torn down after Games.

(Im credit: AP/UNSPLASH)