The medals that will be awarded to 2020 Olympians in Tokyo will be made from garbage, and that is a cool thing.

I’m an unabashed lover of Japanese culture and people and some of my fondest memories are of Japanese video games. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will also lean into gaming. So allow me to gush a bit here for the fine people of Japan.

Most interestingly, there is a possibility the medals athletes are competing for may have a bit of gaming in them.

The gold, silver and bronze medals awarded to the athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games not only represent the greatest honour for the athletes but also an opportunity for Japan to showcase its culture and charm to the rest of the world.

To produce these valuable medals, The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) conducted the “Tokyo 2020 Medal Project” to collect small electronic devices such as used mobile phones from all over Japan. This project makes Tokyo 2020 the first in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to involve citizens and to manufacture the medals using recycled metals.

The approximately 5,000 medals in total have now been produced from the small electronic devices that were contributed from people all over Japan. We hope that our project to recycle small consumer electronics and our efforts to contribute to an environmentally friendly and sustainable society will become a legacy of the Tokyo 2020 Games.

To produce medals that embody the emotions of all those who participated in the Tokyo 2020 Medal Project, Tokyo 2020 launched a medal design competition to invite the public to submit design ideas for the medals. From the procurement of the metals to the development of the medal design, the entire country of Japan was involved in the production of the medals for the Tokyo 2020 Games – truly a project that was possible with the participation of everyone across Japan.

Tokyo 2020

Just think, there may be PlayStation, Nintendo DS, and I imagine a shit ton of Nintendo Wii consoles in Tokyo 2020 medals.

I reckon that this may be the most video game centric Olympics ever, which is pretty neat.

[Source: Tokyo 2020]