The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) on Saturday, 1 April 2017 commenced the nationwide collection of discarded and obsolete electronic devices, including smartphones, digital cameras, handheld games and laptops, in order to use them to manufacture the medals for the 2020 Olympic Games.
Previous Olympic Games have used recycled metal to manufacture medals, but Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be the first to mine material from discarded electronic devices. Organizers claim that all gold medals will be made 100 percent from recycled materials.
This project aims to engage the entire Japanese nation and will offer everyone the opportunity to play a role in the Games' preparations, while drawing public attention to the importance of sustainability. Donors will receive special cards with a machine-readable QR code that will enable them to follow the creation process of the Games' medals from recovery of the metal finishes to design and production.
"As a resident of Tokyo, the thought that something from my home will become parts of the medals, gets me really excited for these Olympic Games". Hiroki Yamashita, a Tokyo resident.
The Organizing Committee aims to collect as much as eight tons of raw metal - around 40 kg of gold, 4,900 kg of silver and 2,900 kg of bronze - which following the production process will yield around two tons of pure metal, enough to produce 5,000 medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
More than 2,400 NTT DOCOMO stores and 350 local government offices in every prefecture of Japan will act as collection centers for discarded electronic devices.
“The weight of a medal around your neck is always a good weight,” said American former decathlete Ashton Eaton, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and world record holder. “And when an athlete at Tokyo wins a medal, the weight of it will not be from the gold, silver or bronze; it will be the weight of a nation.
How does this involve students at GIIS Tokyo?
As part of the SEWA Program run at GIIS Tokyo, the students partake in events of community service and charity. They bring to light the issues of the 21st century, and one such issue is the current situation of the environment.
Hence at GIIS Tokyo, it was decided to partake in the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project and create awareness in the student community about recycling the metal scrap. Ms. Kavita Patil is the Coordinator, and Ms. Aditi Patki, the Facilitator of the project at GIIS Tokyo.
After communicating with the Edogawa ward office, which acts as a local spokesperson for the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, the school obtained more information on the type of items to be collected and officially launched the project in both the campuses. November 20-24, 2017 was allocated as a publicity week, and the students put up informative posters all over the campuses and the teachers too spoke exhaustively in the morning assemblies.
GIIS Tokyo students started to plan not to throw away any of their gadgets anymore. The next week was dedicated to the collection and the students donated a few mobile phones and games.
Later all the collections will be handed over to Edogawa ward office. This will finally reach the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee.
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