Japan's Recycled Olympic Medal's Idea

The Olympics are underway and the medals have started to be handed out but the Gold, Silver and Bronze baubles hanging from around the necks of those who go higher, faster and stronger than the rest are not quite the same as those from over Olympics.
The clever Japanese, one of the technological hot-spots on the planet with companies such as Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Panasonic and Sony, noted that electronics contained the required three metals of bronze, silver and gold so invited it's citizens to donate their old and unused mobiles and other gadgets so they can extract the valuable metals and in a little more than a year, the project received 4.32 million used mobile phones and 34,000 tonnes of small electronic devices from which they have have retrieved 50% of the 30kg of gold required, 43% of the 4,100 kg silver and have already reached the 5,950 kg of the needed Bronze.
The United Nations says that we generate almost 50 million tonnes of e-waste each year but only 20% of that is recycled so making 5,000 medals won't make a big dent in that but it could be a start of something and anything that stops us polluting our planet has to be appreciated.