Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Mint

Photo courtesy Royal Canadian Mint

Winter Olympic medals go green

In an exciting historical first, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games will feature medals containing recycled metals from E-Waste or Electronic Waste. The Olympic and Paralympic Games have long held a philosophy of sustainability and this is another opportunity to show it.

A Vancouver company called Teck Resources provided the metals used in making over 1000 medals for the Winter Games. 6.8 metric tons of discarded electronic circuit boards was shredded, separated and heated to recover the gold, silver and copper that was to be used. The recovered metals were then mixed with mined metal and sent off to the Royal Canadian Mint to be produced.

While the percentage of recovered metals in the completed medals is small, it still demonstrates innovative ideas for recycling and will hopefully become a long running tradition for the Olympics. I am hoping that it will help more people think about the growing issue of Electronic Waste and how to properly dispose of old electronics rather than just throwing them in the trash.

UrbanGreenSpot will be featuring a article on Electronic Waste soon so be sure to check back.

Source: ENS