Recycled Phones for Gold Medals in Tokyo Olympics; Donation Drive Begins

Discarded and old Nokias will find their worth again in the shores of Japan for the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. Old phones will become the most coveted gold medal for every worthy athlete. Japan commenced its drive to ask citizens to donate over a million units of their old gadgets and phones to be transformed into medals that will be awarded this coming Olympics.

Tokyo Olympics Starts Donation Campaign

Because the Japanese people recognize the detrimental effects of the materials used in phones, they have taken an initiative to recycle them and put into good use. And what better way to recycle them old phones than turn them into gold medals that will be awarded to the superhuman athletes? Japan recently announced that they organized a local committee to use recycled smartphone materials as Olympic medals, Android Pit reported.

The Japanese Olympic Committee already asked the people to donate their old phones and appliances. These old units contain gold, silver, and bronze, which are the three core materials to create the medals for the first placers, second placers, and third placers in the Olympics. The summer Olympics will not be until the next three years, which is hopefully a long enough time to gather all the materials needed.

There are collection bids on telecom stores and local offices starting April 2017 and it will be there until they've gathered enough resources. Instead of going to mining companies, the committee has taken this approach to improve sustainability.

Recycled Phones As Gold Medals

Some components of old phones have precious metals other than gold, silver, and bronze. The battery, the screen, the electronics, and the casing can all be sued to make the Olympics medals. Specifically, there are aluminium, indium, silicon, terblum, gallium, lead, and more.

According to the committee, they need about 5,000 medals for the summer Olympics. This quantity needs eight tons of metal. This is the first time that the Olympic medals will be made from recycled old gadgets, Gizmodo reported.