After a slight delay due to the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic, the global sports festival, The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is now underway in Tokyo Japan. The organizers of this event have used this opportunity to get the global attention on reducing environmental impact from the items we use in our day to day activities. The method they have used in this is none other than recycling. Given below are some major highlights where recycling is used as an initiative to reduce the environmental impact in this global scale event.
- All the Olympic Medals are from recycled electronics including mobile phones – Began in 2017 the “Tokyo 2020 Medal Project” requested general public of Japan to donate the used electronic devices that are not in usable condition to extract metals for the production of medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games. From 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2019 period the project collected Approx. 78,985 tons of electronic devices including 6.21 million mobile phones. During the metal extraction process the project had been able to extract 32kg of Gold, 3,500kg of Silver and 2,200kg of Bronze from those collected items. Those extracted metals were used to produce about 5000 Gold, Silver and Bronze medals which are being awarded to the winners of the ongoing Olympic games in Tokyo.
2. Victory Ceremony Podiums from Recycled Plastic – In another great initiative organizers of the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games invited general public to donate used plastics to be used as raw materials to produce victory ceremony podiums. According to the Tokyo 2020 website, the podium is designed by TOKOLO Asao, who also designed the Tokyo 2020 emblems, and used recycled plastic donated by the Japanese people that included major retailers and 113 schools from across Japan. The podium design embodies the “diversity and inclusion” message embedded in the emblem. The chequered ‘ichimatsu moyo’ pattern that represents the concept of the emblems is arranged three-dimensionally on the sides of the podium, symbolising today’s Japan through the transformation of the traditional Japanese design into a modern geometrical style. The design and its colour, associated with the traditional indigo dye, express the unique image of Japan that Tokyo 2020 wishes to convey to the world.
3. 100% of the electricity from renewable sources – According to the organizers of Tokyo 2020, all the electricity used in this event is from renewable sources. The main energy supplier ENOS get their power supplies from Biomass based power generation facilities in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture and solar power generated from solar power generation facilities in Fukushima Prefecture.
- Athelete kits from Recycled clothing – Uniforms of the Olympic Torch bearers and the Japanese team are partly made from recycled plastic bottles.
- Reducing Carbon emissions in transport – All the vehicles used in various transport tasks are low-pollution, fuel-efficient vehicles that uses fuel cell and plug-in Hybrid technologies which will help to reduce CO2 emissions
- Recycling Waste – The organizers target collecting and recycling 65% of the total waste generated during the Tokyo 2020 games.
- Cardboard Beds – The beds given for Olympics athletes are made from recycled cardboards and the matrasses are made from recyclable polyethylene fibers that can be recycled unlimited number of times. Japanese bedding company Airweave has produced 18000 units of these beds which are being used by Athletes and officials of the Tokyo 2020 games.
8. Recyclable Village Plaza – One of the main facilities at the Olympic and Paralympics village, the Village plaza is constructed as a temporary structure using donated timber from various municipalities. After the games the structure is to be dismantled and all the timber will be returned to the respective municipalities to be used for other projects like school buildings and park benches.
Five different themes to Make the Global Sports Festival Sustainable
According to Tokyo 2020 organizers the both Olympic and Paralympic games are conducted under five main sustainability themes. These themes are; climate change; resource management; natural environment and biodiversity; human rights, labour and fair business practice; and cooperation and communications. With the concept “Be better, together – For the planet and the people” the Tokyo 2020 games will be remembered for a long time as the greenest ever global Sports Event. And also the examples set by this event would pave the way for the future events in this scale to maintain the sustainability in a much higher level.
