ABOUT 28,000 uniforms made for volunteers at the recent Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics remain unused after many pulled out over scheduling conflicts due to its one-year postponement.
A recent Kyodo News survey found that municipalities are now struggling to find ways to put the 2020 Tokyo Games items to good use.
More than 1.7 billion yen (US$15 million) of tax payers money has been spent in procuring the uniforms, with Japan preparing for them for at least 48,000 volunteers.
The survey found that 11 municipalities, including Tokyo and nearby Chiba and Saitama prefectures, have many unused uniforms, with Tokyo having the largest number.
According to Kyodo, local governments had purchased the uniforms directly from sportswear maker Asics Corp., one of the sponsors of the games, with some involvement from the games' organising committee.
The cost of one uniform set varies between 22,000 and 40,000 yen, depending on what items are included.
The survey found that Tokyo has about 21,000 pairs of shoes and 23,000 polo shirts left unused while Saitama has 2,000 uniforms, followed by Chiba with at least 1,200.
Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in northeastern Japan have some 1,000 and 800 unused uniform sets respectively.
Fukushima had to store some uniforms at a private warehouse, which costs tens of thousands of yen per month.
Some municipalities are now asking the organisers to provide them with guidelines on how to deal with the unused uniforms as they have spent a lot of money.
However, the organisers seems to be passing the buck, with an official saying that what to do with such uniforms is up to the municipalities that signed the sales contract with Asics.
Sapporo in northern Japan, has donated approximately 100 of 145 uniforms to institutions such as schools for visually impaired people, who have held online interactive sessions with athletes of goalball in foreign countries.
Goalball is a sport played by people with visual impairments.
Yuji Nakamura, a professor at Utsunomiya University in Tochigi Prefecture with expertise in sports administration, said it was important to be transparent in how the uniforms will be put to use even if it was a time-consuming task.
He called for various solutions to be sought, such as getting public opinion, similar to elementary school pupils across the nation voting to decide the mascots for the games.