Heather Photography

But these are not potato chips, rather the Olympic medals are designed from gold, bronze and silver recovered from recycled electronics. The successful athletes will be donning recycled TVs, computers and keyboards used to make these one-of a kind prizes.

The “Metals to Medals” project came from the partnering of the Canadian mining company Teck Resources Ltd. and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). The two-year-old project marks one of the many efforts to make these Olympic Games more sustainable than ever before.

Each one contains more than 140,000 tons of e-waste from Canadian recycling centers.

Aside from their different components, the medals’ look is distinct from those in year’s past. They are being produced by the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa and were designed by Corrine Hunt and Omer Abel. Each one features a wavy appearance to represent ocean waves, snow drifting and Vancouver’s landscape.

They are all laser-etched with aboriginal artwork, so each of the 1,014 medals is unique. On the flip side of the medals the Olympic Rings are embossed with either an orca whale (Olympic) or raven pattern (Paralympic) lasered on with a wood-grain effect. The Paralympic medals are also square.

President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint, Ian E. Bennett says, “The Mint assembled a tremendous pool of talented engineers, engravers, die technicians, and press operators to channel decades of experience into bringing the Vancouver 2010 medals to life.”

The company Teck is cementing their tie to sustainability. The company has made over one thousand medals for the games already using recovered materials.

To these Olympic hopefuls, one thing is for sure, wearing waste has never looked so good.