Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has unveiled the Olympic medal design, each of which will be made using recycled metals extracted from small electronic devices.
100% of the metals required to manufacture the approximately 5,000 gold, silver and bronze medals will be extracted from small electronic devices that were contributed from people all over Japan.
The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games reached its target of collecting precious metal to manufacture the Games medals last week — thanks to the “generous support” from people and communities across Japan, the committee said.
The design of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals reflects the concept that in order to achieve glory, athletes have to strive for victory on a daily basis, according to the committtee.
The concepts for the medals is that they resemble rough stones that have been polished and which now shine, with light and brilliance their overall themes.
Engaging communities
The upcoming Olympic and Paralympic medals are the result of a huge community effort.
The campaign garnered overwhelming response since it started – from local communities to Tokyo 2020 partners – supporting the nationwide collection.
This initiative is the first of its kind in the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
A total of 1,621 local authorities – 46 prefectural governments and 1,575 municipal governments – supported the initiative, representing more than 90% of the local authorities in Japan.
Tokyo 2020 Sustainability vision: Be Better Together
As part of the games legacy, Tokyo 2020 will continue its campaign for recycling and circular economy goals by calling on the same groups of people and organisations to support its sustainability initiatives.
The metals to be recovered are planned to be re-used for community purposes, including creation of medals for local sports events across Japan.
Tokyo 2020 is also planning to recycle household plastic waste and marine plastic waste and use them in the creation of podiums for medal ceremonies.
Moreover, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Torch Relay uniforms will be produced in part using recycled plastic bottles.
Medallists at next year’s Tokyo Olympics will also stand on podiums made from recycled plastic waste recovered from the ocean and plastic collected from local households.
