Samsung Recyclable Phone

How exactly does a company in such a competitive and ruthless market sell more cell phones? One response: manufacture "green" phones. The global Korean consumer electronics corporation Samsung announced at the Seoul World IT Show that it plans to begin offering two environmentally-friendly handsets. The W510 is the very first. The W510 is constructed from a corn-based bioplastic and is free from hazardous heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium.

This is the first bioplastic-based phone from Samsung. On the other hand At the CES in January, Samsumg was not the first or only big-time manufacturer of consumer electronics who utilizes the unconventional material Fujitsu demonstrated a notebook computer with a case made of bioplastic. Furthermore, 3310 Evolve has been produced by Nokia, a cell phone partially constructed from biomaterials.

Getting rid of petroleum-based plastics is an excellent proposition, due to current research, it is common knowledge that corn is an acceptable substitute for fossil fuels and plastics are not a sustainable resource. We hope that Samsung's newer models will use a more sustainable, next-generation bioplastic, although we understand, the thought process behind testing out the market for bioplastic with cheap and readily available corn before any decisions are made.

Samsung has come out with a new phone. Assuring the public that the mobile doesn't contain the nasty petrochemical PVC, the F268 Polyvinyl chloride, a multi-use petroleum based plastic or BFR (Flame retardants consisting of organic compounds containing bromine). This phone is a positive step in the company's plan to stop using PVC and BFRs in all of its cell phones by the year 2010.

Greenpeace has actually given Samsung high marks as an environmentally-friendly consumer electronics manufacturer. This is based on the recent "Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics", which says that the company has received a rankng of 7 out of 10 since March. placing it among the best. Regularly, it also gathered points for its PVC and BFR end of life date. On the other hand while Samsung started to introduce into the market its PVC-free LCD panels last November, though it did lose a few points on the harsh Greenpeace ranking system for failing to incorporate a take-back and recycling program.