All of the medals that will be awarded at the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo will be made from recycled mobile phones and other electronic waste.
Mobile phones and other electronic waste contain miniscule amounts of gold, silver, and copper, which is used to make bronze. When phones are no longer being used they can be recycled and the precious metals can be extracted to be used for other things.
The Tokyo Olympic organisers have collected 30.3kg of gold, 4,100kg of silver and 2,700kg of bronze to create the 5,000 medals. Nearly 70,000 tonnes of discarded electronic devices and an additional 5 million mobile phones have been collected for this purpose.
Mobile phones recycled with RE:MOBILE are sent to Japan to be broken down into components, so if you have donated your phone with RE:MOBILE in the past, it may be used for an Olympic medal!
