Winter Games

I just got back from a trip to Toronto. Visiting in February hadn’t sounded like the best time, but it ended up being great. One reason was that there was unusually little snow, as you can see in the photo. My Canadian boyfriend wants to move back to the area for grad school. In response to my concern about moving to a colder climate, he’s consoled me time and again that it is just a little colder, but snowier. I hope you appreciate the irony that this was my first visit to the area and there was approximately 3.5 feet less snow than there is in my current backyard.

Another factor that made the timing perfect: the Olympics. Not only is all of Canada pumped about the games, but also I don’t have a TV in my house so staying in houses and going to restaurants with television was a treat. Absolutely every TV I saw for 5 days was glowing with the winter games.

If you’ve been watching, you may have noticed that the medals look a little more organic than in years past. This is reflecting their recycled nature. Each medal includes a bit of recycled end-of-life electronics known as e-waste. The medals remain mostly pure, but a small amount of other metals is added to harden the medals. E-waste was sourced to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills. Teck, makers of the medals say, “The process involves shredding, separating, and heating of the various electronic components to recover a variety of metals.” Unfortunately, only very small amounts of recycled materials went into the medals. Perhaps if the reaction is favorable enough, they’ll use more in the future!

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