The site of the Olympic Village in the Harumi 4- and 5-chome districts of Tokyo’s Chuo Ward shown in February, which will be home to 21 14- to 18-story accommodation facilities (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The organizing committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics decided to donate thousands of air conditioners used at the Olympic Village to regions devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and elsewhere, sources said.

All 15,000 air conditioning units at accommodation facilities for athletes in the Harumi 5-chome district of Tokyo’s Chuo Ward will be sent to welfare institutions, schools and other facilities across Japan free of charge after the end of the Games, which will be held from July 24 to Aug. 9, 2020.

The organizing committee insists the contractor that installs the air conditioners at the Games “find facilities where air conditioners will be reused and contribute them to the institutions following the event.”

The contractor must also inform the committee where they have sent the air conditioners.

Under the organizing committee’s plan, the Tokyo Games will be the first Summer Olympics and Paralympics to fulfill the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on a full-scale basis.

To achieve the SDGs, the committee aims to “reuse or recycle 99 percent” of more than 10,000 items to be used for the Games and is considering using cardboard and other easy-to-recycle materials as beds and other articles for athletes at the Olympic Village.