Going for 'green' Gold!

THE STARS OF TOKYO'S OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPICS AWARDED 'CLEAN' MEDALS

The winners of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics this year, will not only have broken personal or international records but they are also the first athletes to have ever received stylish medals made from 100% recycled material! In an effort to make the games more environmentally-friendly, the winning insignia presented to this years' triumphant athletes, have been made from Japan's e-waste. Launching the two-year 'Tokyo 2020 Medal Project' in April 2017, there was a large scale national drive for donations of small consumer electronic devices from which to obtain the metals.

Around 90% of Japanese cities, towns, and villages participated by setting up donation 'pick-up' sites where hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens donated their old mobile phones and laptops and enough were gathered to provide 100% of the metals required to manufacture the 5,000 gold, silver and bronze medals. The final amounts of recycled materials collected included approx. 32kg of Gold, 3,500kg of Silver and 2,200kg of Bronze.

The design for the medals, shows the Olympic emblem on the front and the Greek goddess of victory at the back with the side of each medal inscribed with the name of the event - and each also contains a wood fibre pattern. The gold medals have been made from pure silver plated with around 6 grams of gold, whilst the silver ones are made from pure silver and the bronze ones from gunmetal. The ribbons combined traditional Japanese design motives Great Britain ended up 4th on the Olympic medal table winning 22 gold, 21 silver and 22 bronze medals.

Whilst the Japanese have won the race to be the first to have made medals fully from 100% recycled material, they took the original concept from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio where 30% of the silver to make the gold and silver medals was obtained from recycled materials. Looking ahead to the Paris Games in 2024, I wonder what the stylish fashion capital of the western world has in store?

You can watch a film of Tokyo's medals being made below:-