The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Medals Are Made from Recycled Cell Phones

It’s just shy of one year until the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games kick off, and they’ve finally unveiled specifics on the medals that will be handed out next year. The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee held a competition with more than 400 professional designers and design students, and Junichi Kawanishi was the ultimate winner with his design for gold, silver and bronze medals made from recycled materials. The final product for the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project involved the collection of nearly 80,000 tons of mobile phones and small electronic devices–that’s roughly over 6 million phones according to some reports–around Japan so they could harvest enough material over the the two years of the drive to create the roughly 5,000 medals for the ceremonies. The end result is a fantastically gorgeous combination of modern design and recycled materials that are equally as attractive as they are sustainable… despite the fact that it took a significant amount of time and effort to harvest the raw materials.