Boxes of unused COVID-19 medical goods dumped at Tokyo Olympics

What a waste! Do people here need to be instructed about everything? Common sense to donate them to the necessary establishments when you have unused medical goods, this is worse than the discarded bento boxes

Our hard earned taxes going to waste, in a literal sense. Unbelievable.

And here a few months ago in Osaka I am wondering whether I should bring my unused raincoat down to the hospital for the poor staff because the governor is saying they are flat out desperate??

The "compact" and "ecological" Olympics. Well at least they had cardboard beds.

"We did not instruct each venue what to do in advance,"

There's a raging epidemic happening in that city. Common sense would instruct you the hospitals... oh, never mind.

The committee apologized for the mismanagement as the items

After wasting those bento another mismanaged ?

https://japantoday.com/category/national/olympics-games-organizers-admit-to-wasting-about-4-000-boxes-of-food

‘Seems to be’ a lot of unexpected “transparency” about alleged “spoilage” “losses” & “waste” connected with the JOC. A convenient weigh to “launder money” that taxpayers lost on these Games?- Perhaps more in-depth, 3rd party audits of allocations and exactly where funds went would be in order?

130 million yen worth of food wasted and now this! What a wonderful use of tax payers money! Future generations will suffer due to this enormous bill that the Olympics has debt of Japan!

The officials said they had discarded the supplies as they could not find places to keep them. 

Im sure a few medical facilities could have help them with that problem. People here need to think out of the box a little more, or maybe more to the point, be allowed to.

5 million more reasons the Tokyo Olympics should have been cancelled, and the Olympics cancelled forever.

"We did not instruct each venue what to do in advance," said one of the officials, admitting it was the organizing body's mishandling.

Wasn't it in the Olympic Playbook then? FFS.

Incompetence and lack of common sense of Tokyo 2020 committee.

Things they were able to do decently is nothing at all.

But there's even shameful social atmosphere that try to justify and beautify this problematic wasting event by only number of medals of Japan.

"We did not instruct each venue what to do in advance," said one of the officials, admitting it was the organizing body's mishandling.

Oh, O.K. then. The organizing body just didn't organize anything. Sounds legit.

Sell some of the organizing body's personal assets (family cars, apartments and so on) and they should be able to raise 5 million to cover their debt to the taxpayers.

They def win the gold medal for wastefulness and apology giving

I wish posters would stop referring to "common sense". This is Japan. There will be a rule, order or regulation to follow. If not then confusion or panic is the norm.

Those were OUR tax dollars that paid for this equipment. Since the committee is responsible for this mismanagement shouldn't they pay for it through their salaries??

Right. Didn't think so.

This was on the news this AM as well, and it's just another nail (hopefully) in the coffin of Suga and his cabinet!

The only good thing with this story is that in a few days, all which is related to Olympics and Paraolympics will be over.

This is really ridiculous. To donate gowns, masks and hand disinfectants to some local sport facilities, hospitals, public buildings like community centers etc. cannot be such a difficult task.

This kind of thing happens with so many events, and I always think it's such a waste when useful stuff is tossed out just because it wasn't used before the event finished. It's even more shameful that it was useful goods for fighting the pandemic.

5million yen? And this is news?

I am not saying it isn't wasteful, but i can tell you 5million yen of supplies is nothing on a nationwide scale. A rich person could easily spend that amount in a single day on amusement.

If Japan has to cry that companies cannot even afford to lose 5million worth of supplies, then that is the biggest joke ever. Because the government give millions fo vaccines donations away to other countries. Vaccines that the government bought with our tax money. Billions of yen lost there and you don't see anyone crying over that. Not to mention a ridiculous amount of medical supplies were given as donation over the last 2 years to others.

5million yen is a joke. No company executives would even blink a eye at that amount of supplies lost.

As Japan battles with one infectious virus, that has over shadowed the other infection that has been plaguing the world and Japan for decades.

The top down privilege, corruption, incompetence, waste, mismanagement, that are the Olympics.

From corrupt bidding process, outrageous cost overruns, unnecessary luxury privileges for IOC leaders ( luxury hotels at exorbitant prices), food waste, equipment waste ( as we see here), disregard for others ( not remaining at a scene of an accident the Olympics vehicles are involved in) and topping it all off with total disregard for the health of the general public during a pandemic.

When an institution or government reaches this level of corruption, incompetence, etc... there is no fixing it.

At this point the only remedy is to completely remove, dismantle, to put it out of its dysfunctional misery.

If we really feel the need for something similar, then start from scratch and build something new and better with safeguards in place so this doesn't happen again.

Because the government give millions fo vaccines donations away to other countries. Vaccines that the government bought with our tax money.

Nice try to deflect.

Japan like most other develop countries made a deal for AZ in the Covax agreement in which each rich countries buys or produced 2 doses one for their own use one to be donated to other countries.

To put it in perspective: Pfizer cost $20, Moderna $15, Novavax $13 J&J $10 and the AZ that is being used locally and given under the Covax cost $4 which means $8 for each dose used locally ( one given away $4 one used locally $4).

This is no different than every other country that agreed to join Covax in order to make sure less privileged countries got vaccine.

And the complete trainwreck that was Tokyo 2021 just keeps on giving.

The Olympics movement is truly sick. Only fatcats and dropkicks support it. Hope it collapses and goes away forever.

The officials said they had discarded the supplies as they could not find places to keep them.

"We did not instruct each venue what to do in advance," said one of the officials, admitting it was the organizing body's mishandling.

yup, that’s Japan all right.

inept management and sheep that can’t think for themselves or have common sense.

no shocker here

The Olympics are wasteful by their very nature. I expect the medical stuff is mixed in with the uneaten bentos in the same landfills. How symbolic.

were found to the have been thrown

Paragraph 1, line 2.

Common sense is not so common in this country...

5million yen is a joke. No company executives would even blink a eye at that amount of supplies lost.

Really?

I wouldn't like to see what companies you worked for!

I used to work in IT data centre and IT equipment disposal, upgrading and decommissioning.

I have seen people fired from some of the largest Companies in the world for disposing of redundant or out of date equipment because they still had recycle value, I am not talking about millions of yen I am talking about a few hundred thousand yen. Then we have ISO 14001 on environmental impact.

Tossing away unused bottles of hand sanitizer, masks and gowns is definitely not environmentally friendly.

https://japantoday.com/category/national/olympics-games-organizers-admit-to-wasting-about-4-000-boxes-of-food

Make no mistake, The 4,000 was for opening day alone.

Altogether 130K lunch boxes totalling more than 120M yen was dumped.

So no one on the committee had any discussions about what to do with these boxes of medical goods after it was determined that there would be no spectators and decided to just toss them thinking no one would find out? There needs to be a way to send the IOC a bill to pay for this because they could have been used around the country.

I have heard several times in the last few weeks that the discarded bento boxes are the fault of foreign staff. And that the Japanese would never throw away bento, that bento is a tradition here, etc. So I wonder how that's the case... or how it's going to be justified

It's desperately worrying how Japanese people seem to lack initiative to do things outside of the box. How hard would it have been to look at these supplies and go "since these are unused, why don't we donate them to XYZ?" Why do they always need to be told what to do in order for something to be done?

Japan where Olympics fundamentalists or Olympics supremacists are rampant in society, related people lack even consciousness that was using immense tax.

"We did not instruct each venue what to do in advance,"

What about common sense? Do people need to be told what to do all the time, can't they think by themselves and stop being robots?

Follow the money. -

Whether it be uneaten bento, unused masks, gel, gowns etc. there is plenty of room here for stories of graft, corruption and OUR chosen media favorite: speculation.

Plenty of time to set up ‘the illusion’.

It’s likely since activities were being scaled back months in advance at various venues, the Olympic profiteers and fraudsters saw to it that contracts were ‘honored’, that the inventory was ‘paid for’ but never delivered. Non-existent ‘supplies’ were then easy ‘discarded’ by the already reduced unpaid ‘volunteers’ and support staff.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the waste at the Olympics. I've already seen a Facebook post about steel frames and LED panels, seemingly from a scoreboard, asking if anyone wanted them. They are all heading for the trash on Friday. Loads and loads of other stuff will have been bought and now is going to be dumped or sold off for pennies on the dollar.

Aside from the above, larger yet probable corruption at tax-payers expense, IF masks, gloves and gowns were delivered, its’s likely the same local overseers diverted their individual overages to other locations for later resale?

Even major Japanese politicians were known to have hoarded masks from the earlier SARS/MERS outbreaks and later tried to profit form them in 2020.

Can you believe it? One PM and his friends, allegedly, even devised a plan to have 2 masks delivered to every home in Japan ??

Yes, it reads like fictions but both of these events really happened in 2020!!

As our esteemed colleague justifies here almost DAILY:

- “All countries waste.

All countries prevaricate.

All countries commit their own mismanagement.

Nothing new, no drama HERE ..” -

Let’s see IF those justifications will be equally utilized regarding Western countries and their shortcomings?

All these people making out that the standard Japanese person does not have any skill for deciding for themselves, no invention, no sense of right way/wrong way to do something. That is just not true.

The story as always is missing so much detail who knows what actually happpend. 'Found to be thrown away' is a very confusing concept.

Where were they found?

Where they just dumped in a cupboard out of the way or actually found in a bin?

The article speaks of needing the space and I think what for? What space? and so on. If only a news articles could provide some context.

If I was faced with a bunch of medical stuff and no instructions I would be storing them until the whole circus has left and then distribute them as needed. The circus has not left town and so I would be finding someone to store said items until then.

I used to work were there was a store of water bottes for emergency. When they got close to date expired we would just hand them out to staff, making space for a new delivery. I did not want clear instructions because that would have probably meant not being able to do what I did and some kind of accountancy.

I also had a time when the office got a new kettle/microwave/fridge and the person who delivered it was tasked with taking the old stuff. That did not happen because I gave everything to the cleaner as nothing was wrong. On that occasion some paperwork was fudged.

Morons!!!

I do not believe that there there are no storage containers in Japan.

Maybe NOT to hospitals @Reckless 12:14pm perhaps to a gullible Japanese public…

“These items need to have a clear chain of distribution to ensure quality and the sanitary condition. I am not sure you can just donate it to a hospital.” -

… lest we all forgot:

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3080715/japan-dirty-face-masks-spark-online-backlash-against-prime -

With all this mishandling, there is no surprise that other aspects of the Japanese governments response for COVID-19 is also mismanaged like a shortage of vaccines.

It does take a lot of load voices from the cheap seats to drown out the shill voices that are MOD exempt.

Never mind,never mind, the Tax payer in Japan is ready to remedy the situation.

What a waste.

But why is it exactly that Japanese need to be told what to do ?

And why always so slow about it?

Even after they bin told how to they still don't do it or try to pretend they didn't know or it wasn't planned well or some other exuse.

Ive bin baffled by this Japanese form of efficiency for years.

Couldn't the medical facilities at the Tokyo Olympics be repurposed for battling the pandemic?

If this is not already a criminal act it ought to be. At any rate, this gives you a picture of the Olympics' low moral responsibility to the host country and its citizens and residents.

I cannot believe what I have just read. It is just totally disgusting and shows the people concerned should either get some brains, or go back to school. Come to think of it, they probably didn't go through all years of schooling.

Here endeth my rant!

Pour être précis *@jeancolmar 4:02pm: ***This gives us a growing picture of the JOC’s **low moral responsibility to JAPAN’s taxpaying citizens &resident foreign workers.

“At any rate, this gives you a picture of the Olympics' low moral responsibility to the host country and its citizens and residents.

Agreed.

“If this is not already a criminal act it ought to be.”

However, who will investigate it. Just more to sweep under the tatami.

What was the cost of these items? I bet they were 10 times more than standard price,

Japan redefines "stupidity".

Well done! Common sense is not as common as it seems.

I hate them hate them hate them right now

"The committee apologized for the mismanagement as the items, supplied to the medical offices of nine venues, could have been transferred to facilities battling an alarming rise in COVID-19 infections in Tokyo and other parts of Japan."

So typical here, this kind of behaviour. Meanwhile doctors and nurses in other places are having a hard time securing exactly these things -- wasted by the Olympics.

Dear IOC - your huge success has only been in your pockets, and we know it !

Your huge disaster is yet to unfold, and stories such as this, just add credence to that.

TOKYO

Hundreds of boxes full of unused coronavirus-related medical goods for the Tokyo Olympics, including gloves, gowns and masks, worth a total of 5 million yen, were found to the have been thrown away, the Games' organizing committee said Tuesday.

The committee apologized for the mismanagement as the items, supplied to the medical offices of nine venues, could have been transferred to facilities battling an alarming rise in COVID-19 infections in Tokyo and other parts of Japan.

Wow! So-so-many possible OSHA violations! Not to mention the possibility of reuse! #unbelievable

The whole "event" was a waste of money.

Money that could have been better spent on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NomadSep. 1  06:54 am JST

What a waste! Do people here need to be instructed about everything? Common sense to donate them to the necessary establishments when you have unused medical goods, this is worse than the discarded bento boxes

OBSCENE!

Tom SanToday  11:33 am JST

The whole "event" was a waste of money.

Money that could have been better spent on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

It certainly could've because the virus spread out even more after the Games. Thanks for nothing, Bach and Suga!

They boast about the culture value of MOTAINAI, but dump in the garbage without any hesitation anything, never think of possible donation. Shameful

Boxes of unused COVID-19 medical goods dumped at Tokyo Olympics

It kind of stirs up images of dirty heroin needles found in some seedy neighborhood.

Just as you think the Olympics were revolting you find out that they were infinitely more revolting.