Le Clos covets ‘gold scrap’ at Tokyo 2020

DURBAN’S golden swimming champ Chad le Clos hopes to collect “a lot of scrap” at next year’s Tokyo Olympics – the gold scrap that is.

Presently based in Turkey for training, Le Clos told the Independent on Saturday he was proud of the initiative by the Tokyo government to produce the gold, silver and bronze medals from electronic scrap donated by citizens.

Electronic items such as laptops, cellphones and cameras contain goldplated circuit boards and after a process of extracting the elements, the Olympics committee will produce the gold, silver and bronze medals for next year’s event.

Although these elements from unwanted electronics have been extracted and used in previous Olympic medals, this is the first time a national effort has been launched to collect tons of electronic scrap to manufacture Olympic medals.

The project, according to the Tokyo Olympics committee, has raised awareness about sustainability.

The collection period closes at the end of the month.

The design of the medals is expected to be unveiled soon.

“This is a great cause; I’m very happy about it and it’s where the world is headed. It’s a great message to spread at the 2020 Games,” Le Clos said.

“So I am hoping to collect a lot of scrap, hopefully the gold scrap, and will be doing my best for the country.”

To produce more than 5 000 medals, Tokyo needs to extract 30.3kg of gold, 4 100kg of silver and 2 700kg of bronze.

So far, about 5 million used cellphones have been donated for recycling.