Do you know what Olympic gold medals are cast from?
Old phones, consoles and broken white goods - these are what the major sporting trophies awarded at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics were made of. What else have Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals been cast from in recent years?
Gold in name only - the most valuable Olympic medals are not made of gold!
Let's start at the beginning, which is what Olympic medals are cast from. Although this may seem shocking, gold medals are not made of gold at all! They are produced from top-grade silver (>995), which is then gold plated, this time with real gold at a symbolic 6g. Interestingly, gold medals have not been gold for over 100 years - the last time pure Olympic gold was awarded to athletes was at the 1912 Stockholm Games.
The situation is different for Olympic silver medals, which are silver not just in name. Like the most valuable pucks, they are also Olympic silver is produced from silver of a purity >995. Bronze medals, on the other hand, are cast from an alloy of copper, tin and zinc.
Medals from waste - the Olympic idea at the service of recycling
The medals presented at the modern Olympic Games were usually created from primary materials. The breakthrough came during the 2016 Rio Games, when the silver and bronze medals were made in 30% from recycled metals. These medals were hung on ribbons, which in turn were produced from recycled bottles.
A step further was taken by the organisers of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. - They decided to make medals made from 100% recycled electro-waste material. The entire Japanese public was involved in the collection of this electro-waste, donating old phones, computers and small electronics for months. From the electro-waste collected 4.1 tonnes of silver, 2.7 tonnes of bronze and more than 30 kg of gold were recovered, from which around 5,000 medals could be cast.
Olympic medals are just one of the non-obvious uses of recycled materials. Check out what else is made from recycling!
Medals not only recycled, but also... refurbished
The idea of casting Olympic medals from recycled metals continued at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. In addition to recycled silver, gold, copper, tin and zinc, They also included ... iron fragments from the Eiffel Tower. They were obtained during the renovation and then sunk inside each of the medals. In this way, the top Olympians each received exactly 18 grams of iron from the most important symbol of Paris.