TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — Over a hundred of people gathered at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on Thursday (February 16) to donate their old mobile phones, which will be recycled into medals for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee hopes to gather as much as eight tonnes of metal from outdated mobile phones and small appliances.
This effort, the first of its kind for the Olympics, will extract 40 kg of gold, 2,930 kg of silver and 2,994 kg of bronze metals, enough to make all 5,000 Olympic and Paralympic medals.
The idea had drawn people across Japan to participate in the recycling campaign.
“I came today because I thought it’s great that my old mobile phones will become medals for the 2020 Olympics Games,” said Hiromi Sakushima, 55 year-old resident in Kawasaki, near Tokyo.
“The thought that something from my home will become parts of the medals. As a resident of Tokyo, it gets me really excited for these Olympic Games, which I will get to see for the first time in my life,” said Hiroki Yamashita, an 18-year old resident in Tokyo who brought 17 outdated phones from his family.
The project, which was revealed in the beginning of February, aims to give the public a sense of direct involvement in the Games, as well as to promote sustainability and save costs after the budget for the event ballooned to more than 3 trillion yen ($26.5 billion) at one point, though organizers reduced that sum to $16.8 billion late last year.
“We launched this project aiming to promote sustainability as well as to enhance a sense of direct involvement in the Tokyo 2020 Games. It’s indeed exciting that your mobile phones will be the Olympic and Paralympic medals,” said Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, after donating three of her old phones into a collection box.
Starting April, collection boxes will be installed in local offices and stores of telecoms firm NTT DoCoMo Inc, which will partner with environmental firm Japan Environmental Sanitation Center for the project.
The collection would end when the required eight tonnes were gathered, although further details still needed to be worked out, according to organizers.
