Most Environmentally Friendly Mobile Phone

These days many people are concerned about the environment. From melting polar ice caps to increasingly violent storms it seems that the world is becoming a more unstable place. Politicians, scientists and environmentalists all tell us that global warming will have devastating consequences for the people and animals of the world. We all know that we need to reduce our carbon footprint and one of the ways of doing this is to choose technology that uses energy more efficiently.

Everyone (even Americans) agree this is a bad idea

Many of us try to reduce our own personal carbon emissions by using the car less and shopping locally. Some might insist that this is not enough and that we ought to ditch our dependency on technology, but if we want to keep our computers and mobile phones can we still do our bit for the environment? Manufacturers are becoming increasingly aware of the environment and are striving to produce greener products. Consumers can do their bit by choosing to buy products that don’t have to be left on standby or have better energy ratings.

Mobile phones may not be large, but the environmental issues surrounding them are certainly not small. The numbers sold around the world are staggering; an estimated 940 to 980 million handsets will be purchased this year alone. Although the ecological footprint of each individual phone is small the cumulative effect is significant. Along with many other electrical goods mobile phones contain harmful substances that need to be disposed of carefully. Many mobile phones contain heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury as well as brominated flame retardants, all substances which have been linked to harmful effects in humans and which can have a devastating impact on the environment.

Mobile phones, although small, do suck up a lot of juice!

Major mobile phone companies such as Nokia, Motorola and Sony have responded to these problems by incorporating eco-design principles into their new range of phones.

Nokia is the world’s largest mobile phone producer, manufacturing a new handset every nine seconds. It has stated that it will implement all the requirements laid out in the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive in all of its factories. This directive bans six substances, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, PBB and PDBE.

The Japanese company NEC has developed the first handset to use plant-derived bio plastics. The company has also shifted away from fossil-based power generation meaning that the manufacture of its phones emits 50 percent less carbon.

50% less of this!

Many manufacturers have been improving their phones’ energy performance over the years so that most modern mobile phones now have far more facilities yet only use a fraction of the energy consumed by the earlier models. Unfortunately the large number of phones being sold has created another problem; too many people leave their chargers plugged in when they are not in use. Nokia chargers use 0.1 to 0.5 watts even when they are not connected to a phone. Obviously each individual charger makes little difference, but multiple this by millions and you begin understand the scale of the problem. Nokia has stated that its new chargers will ask the user to disconnect the charger once the phone is fully charged rather than just reporting on the state of the phone. Of course this is one area in which users’ behaviour can have a big impact. Remembering to unplug your charger once it has done its work or using one of the solar powered or wind-up chargers that are available would reduce the amount of energy used. There are also mobile phones which have a wind-up charger incorporated into their design as well as other innovative designs. Some of the changes may be of debateable value, but if consumers keep the pressure on companies to improve their environmental performance greener phones will come on to the market.

The bamboo mobile phone first appeared on the market in 2008. Remove the antenna, battery and print board and the remainder can be placed on the compost heap. After a few weeks it will have been broken down completely and as the case actually contains some bamboo seeds you could even have your own little patch of bamboo. The bamboo phone is made from two materials. The first is corn which is renewable and the second is bamboo which has excellent green credentials. Bamboo grows very fast, growing up to two feet in a single day and it also requires little water. The phone comes with its own charger which has to be hand cranked. According to the manufacturers a three-minute crank will permit the user to make one phone call, although I suppose that does depend on how long your phone call is!

Environmental and cute!

Motorola’s W233 Renew was released earlier in the year in America. The phone is made from recycled water bottles and can be entirely recycled once its owner no longer wants it. The phone even comes in packaging that is made entirely of recycled paper and the makers have kindly included a pre-paid envelope for users to send their phone back for recycling. Motorola have also stated that they will pay for carbon offsets that will cover the manufacture of the phone and its first two years of use. According to press releases from Motorola this is the first carbon-neutral mobile phone.

ZTE is a Chinese producer of telecommunications equipment and they are teaming up with Digicel, the Latin American service provider to provide low-cost solar-powered mobile phones. The company has said that their target market will be the two billion people who have little or no access to electricity.

Some other good contenders for environmentally friendly mobile phones are Samsung’s E200 Eco, Nokia’s 3110 Evolve and Sony Ericsson’s Naite as well as the C901 GreenHeart.

The Samsung E200 Eco phone is made from bio plastics which Samsung claims saves 2.16 tonnes of carbon in the manufacturing process when compared to the manufacture of traditional phones.

Nokia’s 3110 Evolve includes several environmentally friendly features such as using bio covers which contain more than 50 percent renewable materials, smaller packaging which uses 60 percent recycled materials and a battery charger which minimises the power used if you leave the charger plugged in but unconnected to the phone.

This is also green, but not as funky!

Sony Ericsson’s green phones use less packaging and hazardous chemicals (part of Sony Ercisson’s long standing commitment to eliminate hazardous chemicals from its design and production processes). The phone casings are made from 50 percent recycled plastics and each has an optimised display light sensor that will use less energy. Sony Ericsson has also reduced exposure to Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs by using waterborne paint.  The package includes a low-power charger which uses less power if the user leaves the charger plugged in but unconnected to the phone. However, it is still better to unplug the charger once charging is complete.

If you are thinking of purchasing a new mobile phone then don’t just look at the green credentials of your new phone, consider what you are going to do with your old phone. Recycling your old phone is not only environmentally friendly, it can also earn you up to £100.

You could earn up to £100 - but not for a 5110

Just remember to download software to wipe your phone before you send it off so that no personal data is left on it. Fonebank specialises in recycling old mobile phones and according to their statistics they have paid out over £1.5 million to people who sent in their old handsets. The average paid out is £52.77 with some handsets going for as much as £210. Fonebank is not the only company in the market so search the internet and compare the prices being offered by each company. Each company usually has a Freepost address and all you have to do is pop your phone in the post and wait for the cheque. Payments will generally be higher for working phones, but even ones that are no longer working are worth something as the parts can be recycled. People wishing to recycle their old handsets can also receive part of the payment as vouchers that can be spent in shops such as Argos, or payments to charities.

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