Olympic Committee president participates in mobile recycling drive
Thursday, November 29, 2018 - 11:44:32
The latest push to raise awareness about Japan’s efforts to turn old mobile phones into Olympic medals took place earlier this week, with International Olympic Committee (IOC) head honcho Tomas Bach heading to Tokyo in order to make his own contribution to the efforts, according to Inside The Games.
Tokyo 2020 is aiming to become the most sustainable incarnation of the Olympics to date, with a variety of initiatives being pursued in order to achieve this goal. The idea to make the medals doled out to the winning athletes out of metals derived from recycled electronics was formulated some time ago, although there is still something of a shortfall in terms of the volumes collected so far.
Organisers need a little over 30kg of gold to make the top prizes, of which 54.5 per cent has been sourced to date. 43.9 per cent of the total silver required is also already sitting pretty within the campaign’s coffers, while the 2700kg of bronze needed has already been procured.
So far the actual designs for the medals have not been unleashed, although this is expected to take place in 2019. The deadline for collecting the recycled materials is March and there has been a spike in donations, not just from prominent figures but also thanks to wider awareness amongst the public. This should mean that the targets will be hit in good time.
Olympic events tend to encourage a wide range of satellite projects, focusing on the legacy left once the games depart. In Japan for Tokyo 2020 it seems that recycling will play a major part and this mobile collection campaign could be a game changer, encouraging new habits amongst consumers to deal with unwanted devices sustainably rather than simply sending them to landfill.
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