Compost your next phone?
Much-anticipated 'biodegradable' phone by Samsung hits stores next week.
Thu, Aug 06 2009 at 9:21 PM EST
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The field of bioplastics (plastics made from feed stocks other than petroleum) has been growing every year, but for the most part the use of biodegradable or "organic" plastic has been limited to low-cost items like plastic forks and food packaging.That is changing. Samsung's much anticipated "green" phone called 'Reclaim' will be hitting Sprint stores the week of Aug. 10 and the casing is made largely from corn-based plastic.
Is the phone really biodegradable? Well, no ... the battery (like all batteries) contains heavy metals and should be recycled per MNN's electronics recycling guide. And the case is not 100 percent corn plastic. It is 40 percent corn-based biodegradable plastic and 60 percent standard plastic.
But still this is a big leap forward in the greening of the consumer electronics industry. Electronics manufacturers have been wary of bioplastics due to lack of testing in durability, color fastness, and other qualities to which we have grown accustomed.
So the Samsung phone, while not totally green, will hopefully help encourage the industry to wean itself off its dependence on petroleum products.
The web-enabled phone (which includes GPS and a slide-out keyboard) also has a nifty feature that lets you know when its time to unplug your charger by lighting up bright green.
via: MSNBC
Addendum: Samsung seems to be rockin' the green mobile space. They just announced another green phone.. this one is solar-powered. Now they just need to combine them!
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Comments
David
09/26/2009 12:13 PM
Why doesn't Samsung just make products that last for 20 years instead of 2 and a half. This would solve a lot of the problem, but their shareholders wouldn't like it!
bad boy in the backbench
09/05/2009 08:12 AM
There are people actually buying this ****! That Samsung who makes so much of stupid **** in this world, is going green. Oh celebrate.. mankind!!! Maybe we can get that corporate whores Peta or Greenpeace arrange a song and dance competition on the eve of this...
Retards!!!
Anonymous
08/28/2009 17:22 PM
If you really want to go green, turn of your power and take a bath in the creek.
Andy Weissman
08/14/2009 14:10 PM
Sprint and Samsung are thinking green and investing in nature by dedicating a portion of each sale to support The Nature Conservancy and its efforts on the land and in our oceans, lakes and rivers.
Anonymous
08/14/2009 00:41 AM
Soy and hemp would be better than corn. The only reason corn is used for anything "green" is because it's more expensive. Harvesting corn is actually bad for the environment because the "Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertilizer have been found to promote excess growth of algae in water bodies..." which deprives the water from oxygen creating dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico making it.... More
Lancastrian
08/12/2009 11:57 AM
Corn is not an environmentally friendly crop due to the amount of fertilizer and other chemicals used to grow it. It is heavily subsidized by the government, which is why we lack agricultural diversity. There are other crops, such as hemp, that are much greener, easier to grow and useful for thousands of applications. So while this phone is an experiment, a truly green phone will have to make use of some other material. Personally, I think that people could make standard phones a whole lot.... More
Anonymous
08/08/2009 15:36 PM
So what do you suppose to TOTAL volume of "bio" plastic in the entire run of these phones will be? Won't be much when you add it up. Mixed with a majority of regular plastic means that it's not biodegradable after all. I gave up on Samsung anyway. I'd consider the Saga if they would get with the rest of the industry and ditch proprietary connectors for everything. That alone accounts for more waste in peripherals and adapters than anything they could hope to accomplish with this "green" effort..... More
John Davis
08/08/2009 08:01 AM
Its nice to see someone doing something GOOD for change!
kevin
08/08/2009 07:48 AM
according to michael pollner (fresh air interview with terry gross, oct 2008) it takes a gallon of gasoline to produce 1.2 gallons of biodiesel. i don't know how much fossil fuel it takes to produce "bio-plastic" but i'm guessing it's a lot. we do need to try to manufacture products that are as biodegradable as possible, but in a sustainable way!
Anonymous
08/08/2009 11:06 AM
Making it bio, uses less of the original material, as you should have noticed, 1 gallon of gas makes 1.2 gallons of bio-diesel.
Muwasalat.com
08/08/2009 05:12 AM
It is always to see A GIANT in mobile technology to give it a go for a green product.
Really looking forward to biodegradable batteries.
Anonymous
Today 10:55 AM
Any corn biobased product uses more fossil fuels than plastic. That is a fact. And corn items are disposable only in commercial and municipal composts. BUT you have added poly to it, so it won't break down there or in a landfill. So it is bad on both ends. Nice going. The World Bank stated that 75% of the food shortages in the world today are due to the diversion of corn from food and feedstock to plastics and ethanol. (Both of which are not sustainable and use more fossil fuels than regular.... More
Anonymous
08/08/2009 11:10 AM
You don't have your facts straight, try posting after you read up on what these phones are made of, what fuels are needed to produce certain items compared to these, and what happens when a phone is made from sugar, soy, or out of many types of grasses.
