Though leaders from the International Olympic Committee(IOC) have announced a first-of-its-kind postponement of the Tokyo Summer Olympics because of the corona virus pandemic, people all over the world are still concerned about its preparations. Officials from the Tokyo Olympic Committee say they are sparing no effort and announce the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021 is going green. The 5,000 medals Japan has made are more special than most.
One novel focus of the Tokyo Olympics is to be "sustainable"—to avoid using too many natural resources, so that the games are easy on the environment.) As part of this goal, the organizers decided to make all of the Olympic medals out of metal recycled from old electronics.
Almost all electronics are made with small amounts of "precious metals", like gold and silver. But collecting enough of these metals to make 5,000 medals was a huge challenge. That's because the amount of metal in each device is tiny. It would take about 20,000 cell phones to get just 1 kilogram of gold.
Beginning in April 2017, the organizers placed collection boxes around the country, and asked people to turn in their old electronic devices. Soon people began to respond to the initiative(倡导)，turning in smart phones, digital cameras, handheld games, and laptops. At first, collection went slowly, but soon more and more areas began to take part. By the end, 1,621 local governments had helped out with the collection process.
Then came the job of breaking those devices down into smaller pieces. After being taken apart and sorted, the small electronics were smelted(熔炼) to get all the gold, silver, and bronze elements. This is a tricky job, which calls for careful attention and good skill. It's also dangerous, because some of the metals and other things aren't safe for people to touch or breathe.
By the end of March, 2019, the organizers had hit their targets of getting enough metal for the medals. They had collected around 32 kilograms of gold, 4,100 kilograms of silver and 2,200 kilograms of bronze. And now all the 5,000 medals are available for the would-be winners.
