While you might not exactly get a gold medal by winning the Dead Computer Contest over on Instructables, you might be able to make yourself one!

It turns out that the Olympic medals awarded in this year’s winter games contain recycled precious metals sourced from broken electronics and appliances. Although, there is only a small fraction of recycled gold, silver and bronze used in each medal, it is great to see the Olympic committee concerned with the environmental impact of their event.

This also begs the question, just how many dead computers would it take to make an entire gold medal? If I had to give a wild guess, I would think the answer would lie in the tens-of-thousands range. (Un)Fortunately, there happens to be millions of unwanted circuit boards out there in the wild and they contain more gold than you may think. Perhaps, at future Olympics, the winners will stand on the podiums with medals comprised of entirely recycled precious metals.

I always like pointing out to people that the RAM Money Clip (p.116) I made for the book is gold-plated and came out of your standard dead PC. Dead computers are just loaded with gold and other precious metals. So, even if you don’t make your own gold medal, you can still be blinged-out with your own E-waste creations.

via Tiny Choices