Japan recycled 6.21 million used phones to make 5,000 Tokyo Olympic medals

From April 2017 to March 2019, Japan collected electronics through two national channels. Under the 2020 Medal Project, NTT Docomo shops took in about 6.21 million used phones, while municipalities collected approximately 78,985 tonnes of small electronic devices.

Through them all, recyclers were able to extract 32 kilograms of gold, 3,500 kilograms of silver and 2,200 kilograms of bronze. These were then used to make the 5,000 Olympic and Paralympic medals.

Two collection streams

The project ran from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2019. An official Tokyo 2020 sustainability report separates the two figures: municipal collection produced the 78,985-tonne total, while about 2,300 NTT Docomo shops collected 6.21 million phones.

One counts handsets collected through phone shops. The other measures the mass of a much broader municipal stream that included mobile phones and other consumer electronics such as cameras, laptops and handheld game systems.Participation became national in scale. The report records 1,621 local governments, more than 90 per cent of Japan’s municipalities, alongside support from 38 companies, central-government buildings and collection points run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The lengthy process

A phone holds useful metals in circuit boards, contacts, wiring and other components but none are pure. The project’s documented process moved through collection, classification, dismantling, extraction and refining before manufacturers received usable metal. Electronics use gold because it conducts electricity reliably and resists corrosion. Silver and copper also carry current efficiently. A single handset contains only small amounts, often spread across thin contacts and circuit-board traces, but millions of devices turn those fragments into industrial feedstock.Japan already had a legal framework for that chain. The Small Home Appliance Recycling Act took effect in April 2013 and covered more than 100 kinds of electrical or battery-powered household products. Municipalities could choose what to collect, while government-certified operators dismantled, crushed and sorted devices into resource streams.The medal campaign used that infrastructure for a visible, time-limited objective.

Donation boxes supplied a reason to return devices that might otherwise remain in drawers or enter ordinary waste, while certified businesses handled the less photogenic work of separating mixed materials.

Gold, silver and bronze

The Tokyo 2020 media guide reports final secured amounts of about 32 kilograms of gold, 3,500 kilograms of silver and 2,200 kilograms of bronze material. The report uses familiar medal labels, but “bronze” is not a pure chemical element.

Tokyo’s bronze medals were made from a copper-rich alloy.The gold label also needs context. A modern Olympic gold medal is not solid gold. Tokyo’s first-place medals used a pure-silver body plated with more than six grams of gold, while silver medals were pure silver. The large recovered silver total therefore served both gold and silver medal production.An official Tokyo 2020 legacy report records approximately 5,000 medals produced for the two Games.