Were discarded smartphones, laptops used for medals in 2021 Tokyo Olympics

News Claim: A message viral on social media is, “Did you know that Japan made all of the medals for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics out of discarded smartphones and laptops?”

Viral message on WhatsApp today & other Social Media: A message viral on social media claims that Japan made all of the medals for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics out of discarded smartphones and laptops?

News Verification: The image shared on social media is not from the current Tokyo Olympics, it is at least 3 years old, published in Forbes.

The images are available in Getty since 2018, OLY-2018-PYEONGCHANG-MEDALS

The PyeongChang 2018 Olympic medals are displayed during their unveiling at a ceremony in Seoul on September 21, 2017. The Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 medals were officially unveiled on September 21, with features of the Korean alphabet consonants on their bodies. / AFP PHOTO / JUNG Yeon-Je (Photo credit should read JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images)

Embed from Getty Images

The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is in charge of presenting the gold, silver, and bronze medals—and they're all made from recycled electronics. The committee collected around 70 pounds of gold, 7,700 pounds of silver, and 4,850 pounds of bronze—all from various donated electronic gadgets—to fashion approximately 5,000 medals for this year's Games.

As per zmescience, There was a large-scale, national effort in Japan to collect enough recycled material to produce about 5,000 bronze, silver and gold medals for the Olympics. Up to 90% of Japanese cities, towns, and villages participated by setting up donation pick-up sites where hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens donated their old electronic devices. It was a massive effort to engage the national government, municipalities, companies, schools and other local communities.

News verdict: true, image is unrelated, however, the information is true

Article Sources +

This Olympics, all the medals are made entirely of recycled materials

Tokyo's Olympic Medals Are Made Entirely From Recycled Gadgets

About The Author

Chetan Sharma is an Indian fact-checker and news writer, writing news for Ayupp since 2014.

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