Back in April 2017, the Japanese Olympic Committee began collecting electronic waste to make all the gold, silver and bronze medals for the Tokyo Olympics, which will be held in 2020. Having collected more than 47 thousand tons of waste, including more than 5 million mobile phones, the committee finally presented the design of medals 100% made from recycled materials. All donations were made by people, and a total of 32 kilograms of gold, 3500 kilograms of silver and 2200 kilograms of bronze were collected. Only a year was left before the Olympic competitions, but rumors about this were still in 2017.
Design concept
An option chosen from over 400 others that won the design of the Olympic medals was created by Japanese designer Junichi Kawanishi. Its essence is polishing unprocessed stones until they shine.
The designer was incredibly honorable: “This is a great honor,” Junichi Kavanishi said. “I never dared to dream about it, and I put forward my design in order to honor such a memorable event. These medals will reflect the glory of athletes and symbolize friendship.”
“The construction of Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals reflects the main idea: to achieve fame, athletes fight to win every day,” says a Tokyo 2020 representative. “Medals collect and reflect many rays of light, symbolizing the energy of athletes and those who support them; the design symbolizes human diversity and represents a world in which people who compete in sports and work hard are rewarded. The brightness of the reflection of the medals represents the warm light of friendship, depicting people around the world holding hands. "
Appearance
Each medal is 85 millimeters in diameter and features a traditional relief image of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, standing in front of the Olympic Stadium. On the other side of the coin, Tokyo 2020 and the iconic 5 Olympic rings are engraved. Only 5000 gold, silver and bronze medals. They were all created using metals that were extracted from recycled electronics. Each medal is offered a ribbon and a wooden case, each of which was made by a Japanese master. Tokyo 2020 says: "Just as every person who steps onto the competition field has individual traits, so a tree has unique patterns - we took this into account when designing the cases."
Images of medals
Gold, silver and bronze medals for the Olympics, which will be in Tokyo in 2020, are made from electronic waste.
The design was created by Junichi Cavanishi.
Each comes with a wooden case from Japanese masters.
You can watch a video of the medal production process.
