Global Forum for Sports and Environment
E-Waste Finds New Life in Medals for 2010 Winter Olympics
Teck Resources, a mining and metals company based in Vancouver, supplied all the metals used in the production of the more than 1,000 medals to be awarded at the Vancouver Games, which start Friday with the opening ceremony. The content of recovered metal from the e-waste material in the specific metals is: gold: 1.52 percent; silver: 0.122 percent; and copper: 1.11 percent. The recovered gold, silver and copper used in the medals came from 6.8 metric tonnes of electronics circuit boards collected and processed at Teck's Trail, BC facility and the Umicore facilities in Belgium. Developed in consultation with the BC Ministry of the Environment, Teck says its electronics recycling process meets the exacting environmental standards needed for the responsible processing of e-waste. The electronic components were shredded, separated, and heated to recover the metals, which were then combined with the mined metal from other Teck sources for production of the medals.
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11 February 11, 2010 (ENS) - The medals that will honor winning athletes at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver will be the first in history to contain gold, silver and copper recovered from end-of-life electronics otherwise destined for the landfill.