Tokyo 2020 Olympic medals to be made from old electronics

"40kg of gold, 4,920kg of silver and 2,944kg of bronze"

If the gold medals are actually gold plated silver, the numbers look about right.

For cost reasons, only the Silver and Bronze medals are solid. Gold is gold plated silver - so still precious metal throughout (they're not coating tin or something!), but not solid gold.

Corruption?

In MY olympics?

"8,000 kg of precious metals for 4,000kg of medals."

Some of it evaporates during processing.

Re: With or without RFID?

No, no , no. Has to be Bluetooth enabled.

Let's hope they don't...

Let's hope they don't use this as a reason to delay the medal ceremonies even further, till after the Paralympics, let alone the Velodrome events.

Re: Calling Tim Worstall

There are some cheap new methods for getting gold from electronics (and some far less toxic than old methods e.g. using vinegar!)

Re: Calling Tim Worstall

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/02/recycling_your_high_tech_gear/

So certainly more expensive than using virgin materials, and very likely worse for the environment. But "environmentalism" appears to be about symbolic gestures, so that's alright then. I've a far better idea for saving the planet. Make the Olympic medals out of recycled plastic bottle tops. The material is low cost, energy consumption of melting and mixing is low, genuine alternative uses are somewhat limited and low value, and the colours are all readily available.

Admittedly the athletes might be unimpressed by plastic medals, but hopefully they'll appreciate that it is the taking part that counts. And in any event, given that they all seem to be on performance enhancers, or mysteriously needing TUE, most of 'em only deserve a plastic medal.....

Re: Calling Tim Worstall

Well, I wouldn't say that I'd specifically go out to get phones to recycle them for the gold. But there are people who do mine them and do so productively.

There're a couple of caveats though.

1) No one metal makes the process worthwhile. If you were doing 80s PCs with 200 nm Au plating on the pins them maybe that would be enough in revenue. And if anyone's got some old analogue telephone switches then it's worth hand clipping them for the gold content (have actually watched this being done).

For modern equipment you want the Sn, Cu, Au out and maybe they'll just about cover your costs. Add in not paying Landfill Tax and you're about there.

It might be possible to go further, take the Ta out, but not much more.

2) The other side of this is what are you allowed to throw away? If, once you've started mulching stuff this becomes chemicals waste or some such, with higher disposal costs, you might well find that landfilling the original phones makes more sense.

It's a delicate balance between the two, revenue and final disposal costs. Can go either way dependent.

What certainly doesn't get paid for is the cost of collecting widely dispersed waste into one place. Paying for that has to come from elsewhere. Could be like this. Or, the people who collect today usually try out those that still work and sell them in poor countries. That's the extra revenue that makes the whole system work. Just recycling for the metals costs will not and cannot pay for the costs of the whole system, including collection.