The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo will be providing athletes of all shapes and sizes a 6”11 cardboard bed.
The 18,000 beds with frames entirely made of cardboard can handle up to 200 kilograms, which is more than any athlete weighed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
The beds will be the first of their kind at the Olympics to be completely recyclable; the beds to be paper products and the mattress components to be made into new plastic products.
“Those beds can stand up to 200 kilograms,” explains Takashi Kitajima, general manager of the Athletes Village, “They are stronger than wooden beds.”
Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics aims to minimise resources waste and at that, has a target of 99% of items to be reused or recycled afterwards.
To match Tokyo 2020’s beds; the medals are made entirely out of recycle consumer devices, the Olympic torch is made from aluminium waste, podiums from recycled household and marine plastic waste, uniforms from plastics bottles and the electricity is powered by renewable sources.
The Athlete’s Village, comprised of 21 apartment towers, will have its units sold off or rented after the Olympics, with sale prices starting at about US$500,000 and to soar to three or four times that much.
