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◼ Gold $48,413 / kg London Metal Exchange cash spotIn a twist on the old saying,
“One man’s trash is another man’s
treasure,” the organizing committee
of the 2020 Summer Olympics
has harnessed the recycling fervor
of Japan’s citizenry to source
precious metals for the medals
that will be awarded at next year’s
games. A two-year collection drive
that wrapped in March netted
almost 79,000 tons of consumer
electronics. The labor-intensive
process of mining metals from
the discarded gadgets has yielded
32 kilograms of gold, 3,500kg of
silver, and 2,200kg of copper and
zinc—enough to produce more than
5,000 medals.79Au
Gold((1)) Unveiled in July, the gold medal
designed for the Tokyo Games
contains just 6 grams of the
precious metal—the minimum
required under guidelines issued
by the International Olympic
Committee. The rest is silver.
((2)) Yellow collection boxes, like this
one at a government building
in Tokyo, were installed at post
offices and on street corners
across Japan.
((3)) More than 6.2 million handsets
were donated to the Medal Project.
((4)) Employees at a facility in
Kawasaki owned by Field
Environmental Service Inc., one
of 50 companies contracted to
process the e-waste. A handset’s
circuit board contains tiny
quantities of precious metals.
((5)) A dissected camera and phone
on display at a collection station.
((6)) Circuit boards are dunked
into chemical solutions that
separate gold from other metals.
The process is repeated until the
desired level of purity—99.9%—is
achieved.
((7)) Gold at different stages of the
purifying process.SOME THAT GLITTERS
IS RECYCLED Photos and text by Carlotta Cardana
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