The Tokyo Olympic Games will start on July 23, 2021 because of the ongoing COVID-19.The Olympics will still be called Tokyo 2020.
Japan, the host country of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has promised to hold "the most innovative (创新的) Games ever organized." On July 24, 2019, the Olympic Committee (奥委会) expressed its first bright idea — medals (奖牌) were made from old phones and other electronics.
The idea was first introduced in 2016 by a group of young Japanese students. They wanted to raise awareness (意识) of the serious electronic waste produced by the country's tech-loving people who change their electronics very often. Japanese people threw away 650,000 tons of electronics every year, only about 100,000 tons of which are recycled.
To help the environment and raise the awareness, the Olympic Committee started the "Everyone's Medal" program in February 2017. The program encouraged people to drop off used electronics at specific location bins set up by Japan5 s Environmental Sanitation Center. It seems to be hard to gather the 8 tons of materials needed to make the 5,000 Olympic and Paralympic medals. However, they had nothing to worry about. By the time the collection ended in March 2019, around 79,000 tons of used cellphones and other small electronics had been collected. In total, the program got 32 kilos of gold, 3,500 kilos of silver, and 2,200 kilos of bronze - more than enough to make every medal.
The Olympic Committee hopes the Tokyo 2020 medals will help raise awareness of the alarming increase in electronic waste - not just in Japan but worldwide - and cause people to rethink whether they need to change their electronics unnecessarily. As Kohei Uchimura, who got three Olympic gold medals, said: "Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic medals will be made out of people's thoughts for avoiding waste. I think there is an important message in this for the future."
Though Japan is the first Olympic host country to make all the medals using metals from used electronics, it is not the first to think of the idea. Brazil made about 30% of the silver and bronze medals for the 2016 Summer Olympics from recycled materials.
①the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
②Japanese students introduced the idea.
③ the Olympic Committee expressed a bright idea.
④ the collection of the used electronics.