The archive · Public & Social · Product decision · 2017–2021
Tokyo forges Olympic medals from 78,985 tons of donated phones — Japan's 'urban mine'
Tokyo 2020 asked citizens to donate old phones and laptops; smelters refined the metal and cast every Olympic and Paralympic medal from Japan's 'urban mine'.
Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee · NTT Docomo
What it had to solve
Tokyo 2020 wanted to use 'the world's most widely televised event' to showcase sustainability, and to avoid medals whose metals come from freshly mined ore — so the raw material itself became a public-participation project.
How it works
Olympic medals are usually made from freshly mined ore, but Tokyo 2020 organisers decided its Games would prove the opposite: a circular economy, where the waste of 126 million people becomes the raw material. So they launched the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project — a nationwide collection of discarded consumer electronics, framed as Japan's 'urban mine'.
From April 2017 collection points appeared in post offices, schools and NTT Docomo shops. Schools competed to gather the most devices, and roughly 90% of Japan's local authorities took part. The donated phones, cameras, handheld games and laptops were classified, dismantled and smelted by contractors, producing the gold, silver and bronze for 5,000 medals designed by Junichi Kawanishi after a nationwide design contest.
The numbers were staggering: by November 2018 the public had handed over 47,488 tonnes of devices plus five million phones through a single carrier; the final haul reached 78,985 tons, including 6.21 million phones. At the Games in 2021, Tokyo's athletes became the first in history to receive medals — and stand on podiums — made entirely of recycled materials.
Why it lands
- It converted procurement into civic engagement: instead of buying metals, organisers made citizens stakeholders, and people donated 78,985 tons of gadgets.
- The donation was the message: letting people put their phone inside a medal drove municipal and school participation to 90%.
- It answered credibility with scale: past Games recycled only 30% of medal metals (Rio 2016), so Tokyo's 100% claim was checkable and unprecedented.
- The 'urban mine' framing turned e-waste disposal into pride and made sustainability the Games' headline.
What it did
By November 2018 the public had donated 47,488 tonnes of devices, plus five million phones through one mobile carrier alone; the final project haul reached 78,985 tons of devices including 6.21 million phones, with more than 90% of local authorities taking part — and Tokyo 2020 became the first Games whose medals and podiums were made 100% from recycled materials.
What you can take
Turn a supply problem into a participation mechanism: if you need a scarce material, make donating it the event.
Since then
The medals were awarded at the postponed 2021 Games, worn by athletes from 206 delegations, and the podium was built from 24.5 tons of plastic waste donated by households and schools. Tokyo 2020's Urban Planning and Sustainability Commission chairperson Komiyama Hiroshi called the medal project part of the Games' legacy: 'they have prompted us to think about what a sustainable society is and how our individual actions can change to help achieve it.' The IOC has since pointed to Tokyo as the example of circular-economy thinking in sport.
Sources
- Tokyo 2020: Medals to be made from recycled waste
- Tokyo 2020 highlights the possibilities for a circular economy
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