07/25/2021
ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OUTCOMES OF RESPONSIBLY RECYCLING YOUR EWASTE .. SAVE THE OKAPI AND ITS NATURAL RAINFOREST HABITAT IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO!
AN OLYMPIC FEAT: Coltan is a mineral used in cell phones and other small electronics, but those small electronic devices also happen to contain materials used to create the Olympic medals: gold🥇, silver🥈,and bronze🥉.
Mining for this mineral in the Congo rainforest is accelerating deforestation and threatening critically endangered habitat of the indigenous mountain gorilla and exotic okapi.
So when Japan set the goal of making the 2020 Olympics (postponed until 2021 and happening now!) the most sustainable in history, they called upon their citizens to donate their old small electronics to be recycled and used to create the metals.
It took 2 full years to collect enough devices, but they were up for the task. In the end, 79,000 tons of small electronics, including 6.21 million cell phones, were recycled and turned into the ~5,000 medals needed for the games. That’s a lot of coltan recycled and okapi habitat preserved!
Congratulations Japan! If sustainability was an Olympic event, you’d win the gold medal.
You can recycle ♻️ your old cell phones here with us at the R3eWaste facilities in Phoenix, AZ. Austin, TX, Tuscon, AZ, Irvine, CA. You can find us at www.r3ewaste.com or call us at (602) 314-6061.
Find out how else this year’s games are the most sustainable yet: bit.ly/3eDB6DC