In 2013, an article by Dell estimated that if you were to extract precious metals from discarded smartphones, you would get about 300 grams of gold for every 10,000 phones recycled.
Other estimates say that a single smartphone can contain up to 0.034 grams of gold, 0.34 grams of silver, 15 grams of copper, 0.001 grams of platinum and 0.015 grams of palladium.
Now, in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games have revealed the "100 per cent sustainable" Olympic medals for the mega-event — all of them entirely made out of recycled electronics. The new medals were announced as part of the "One year to go" campaign, marking just 365 days left until the Olympics are to begin in Tokyo.
The campaign to collect metal for the 5,000 medals required in the next Olympics began in April of 2017, with 1,621 local authorities comprising 46 prefectural governments and 1,575 municipal governments supporting the initiative, representing more than 90 per cent of Japanese local authorities government.
The drive sought out "discarded and obsolete electronic devices" such as smartphones, digital cameras, handheld games and laptops. The 2013 Dell article had also estimated a collection of 155 grams of gold for every 200 laptops recycled.
The result was impressive in scale: The recovery included 32kgs of gold, 2,500 kgs of silver, 2,200kgs of bronze, from a total of nearly 80,000 tons of electronic waste, including 6.21 million mobile phones.
The organizing committee announced that it had met 100 per cent of its collection target from the drive. In addition, the 2020 Olympics will feature podiums made out of recycled plastic from household and marine waste, while the Olympic Torch Relay uniforms will be partly made from recycled bottles.
According to a report by WeForum, the total value of e-waste worldwide is estimated to be around $62.5 billion — thrice the value of all the silver produced on earth.
Segregating and recycling waste can prove a huge opportunity, with the NITI Ayog estimating that up to three million direct jobs and 15 million indirect jobs can be created in India alone for the task.
