Boost needed for metal recycling for Tokyo Olympic medals

January 1, 2018

Tokyo- With some two-and-a-half years to go before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, a novel project to create gold, silver and bronze medals for the competitions by utilizing so-called urban mines needs a boost.

The project, launched in April 2017 by the organizing committee for the games, the Environment Ministry and others, calls for recovering gold, silver and copper from used electronic devices, including mobile phones, with the aim of making all of some 5,000 medals for the quadrennial sporting events from the recycled metals.

To achieve that goal, the project organizers have asked local governments to cooperate by, among other things, installing recycling boxes.

Of all municipalities in Japan, 1,220, or about 70 percent, have expressed their intention to join the project. But the participation rate differs greatly prefecture by prefecture.

All municipalities are taking part in the project in seven of the nation's 47 prefectures--Toyama, Fukui, Wakayama, Yamaguchi, Kagawa, Ehime and Kumamoto. By contrast, the proportion of participating municipalities is below 50 percent in seven other prefectures, with the lowest figure standing at 33.9 percent, in Fukushima, followed by 36.6 percent, in Okinawa, and 37.1 percent, in Yamagata.

"It's difficult to force municipalities to participate in the project," an official of Kochi Prefecture, where the rate stands at 41.2 percent, the fourth lowest, says, pointing to impediments such as how to deal with personal information included in used mobile phones and contracts between municipal governments and industrial waste disposal companies.

Meanwhile, an official of the Wakayama prefectural government says that recycling boxes were installed after Wakayama Governor Yoshinobu Nisaka asked all municipalities in the prefecture for cooperation.

"A prefectural government's engagement would raise the participation rate," the official stresses.

As part of efforts to boost local communities' participation in the project while curbing their costs, the Environment Ministry has sent recycling boxes to all cities, towns, villages and wards across the country and called for them to be placed at local government offices.

The ministry also plans to approach local economic organizations for support to encourage more municipalities to join the initiative.

"We do want municipal governments to install recycling boxes and utilize them to help local people feel that they are playing a role in the Olympic and Paralympic Games," an official of the ministry says. Jiji Press