The Fashion Plate Magazine

According to the Global Citizen, the 5,000 medals awarded to next year’s  2020 Olympic Games winners are crafted entirely out of metal extracted from recycled electronic devices donated by Japanese citizens. Organizers say they are the first sustainable medals produced by public contribution. Earlier this year, Tokyo held a formal ceremony unveiling the 2020 Olympic Games medal design to the city.

There’s a limit on the resources of our earth, so recycling these things will make us think about the environment,

Koji Murofushi, sports director of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

Electronics are rich in precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and copper. Although the amounts in individual devices are small, collectively it can amass a significant amount of precious metals. And Japan is using that it to its advantage. Over the past two years, organizers gathered gold, silver, and bronze metal from 78,985 tons of donated electronic devices.

For the 2020 Olympic Games there will be three sustainable medals: gold, awarded to the winner; silver, awarded to the 1st runner-up; and bronze, awarded to the second runner-up.  

This is not the first time Olympic medals were from recycled materials. The medals at the Rio 2016 Olympics were made from 30% recycled materials. But this is the first time the medals are 100% recycled.

The 2020 Summer Olympics are from July 24th to August 9th, in Tokyo, Japan.