There is only half a year away
before the greatest amateur athletes of the world assemble once more to compete
for glory in a sporting tradition that has a connection with ancient times. The
2020 Summer Olympics that will begin this July in Tokyo, Japan will be the
Games of the XXXII Olympiad in modern reckoning, with a number of events
debuting for the first time as Olympic events, or returning after being dropped
from the program in the past. With athletes and delegations expected to arrive
in Tokyo soon, the Japanese organizers are going all-out to accommodate them
and not go over-budget in doing.
On that regard, they may have hit
upon an ingenious means to provide enough sleeping accommodations for all
official comers according to ABS-CBN News.
That is because they are rolling out beds with frames made out of sturdy recyclable
cardboard, upon which will be nestled polyethylene-material mattresses. The
beds were previewed as part of a bedroom setting demonstration during a pre-Olympic
press event in Tokyo just this Thursday, January 9. The mock apartment gave
media representatives a tease of the accommodations for the Olympic Village
complex, which were already completed construction in December last year.
Located next to Tokyo Bay and within
sight of the Rainbow Bridge connected Shibaura Pier and Odaiba, the athlete’s
village for the upcoming Olympics will be requiring about 18,000 beds to cover
all its future occupants. All those beds will be made of the polyethylene
mattresses and recyclable cardboard frames, measuring 2.10 meters in length and
therefore able to fit all but the tallest athletes. Airweave, the company
making these beds, guarantees that all their Olympic Village beds are good to
carry the weight of a 200-kilogram sleeper. To explain, not one of the athletes
from the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics ever weighed that much.
A prevailing theme for the Tokyo Summer
Olympics this year is environmental sustainability and recyclability of
materials. For instance, all medals will have their metals extracted from
recycled smartphones, no less than 6.2 million in number. As for the beds, once
the Olympics and the follow-up Paralympics are over, they will be recycled
again for use in commercial plastic products, ensuring that none of the
materials will be wasted in disposal after being used. The Olympic Village
buildings themselves will be reconfigured as apartment units. The 2020 Summer
Olympics will kick off in Tokyo on July 24, until August 9.
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