Canada has been putting up with a lot of emotional abuse. Often labeled as a bunch of hockey-loving, beer-drinking, plaid-wearing socialists, many people can’t take our Northern neighbor seriously. But it’s time to cut the junk. The host of the last Olympic Games is actually much cooler than you think. And the reason has nothing to do with maple syrup.

Canada’s cool factor can be attributed to a really innovative production of Olympic medals. A February third article from Bloomberg describes the green process. The recent awards included metals from old televisions, circuit boards, monitors and electronic waste. Talk about trash to treasure. The metal was produced in a Vancouver based company called Teck Resources, Ltd, which is Canada’s largest base-metal producer which plans of processing 15,000 tons of e-waste this year, up from 2,100 in 2006. The company plans on augmenting its electronic stash to include DVD players, fridges, and light bulbs in an effort to re-use even more items that are just wasting away in dumps.

Although the whole Olympic process can wear down a few resources, Canada proves that eco-friendly elements can be incorporated. Not only does the production of these medals give Canada some good publicity, it shows that recycling is easy and just takes a little creativity. Including what would normally be considered “junk metal” in the production of other metals will help us reuse all those old TVs and fridges that are just hanging out in dumps. The junk can even be used to produce more of the same product, just with more recycled manner. Think of it as an e-reincarnation. So let’s toast our dear Canadians and take a hint toward more green production.