Green Mobile Phone Revolution: A Futuristic Study

With the progress of technology, consumption of power and use of raw materials are increasing day by day. As we can very soon approach the critical mass of mobile phones all over the world, we have to consider making green mobiles from recycled and bio-degradable plastics so that we do not add more to the already-panting nature. But, if you are to bring in peace in Rome, you should follow the church. What do the popes of mobile phone industry think? What are their future plans? Here is a study.

The First Steps

At the Mobile World Congress this week the green mobile concept phones are gonna be the in the limelight. Almost every manufacturer has come up with some intention to make environment friendly mobile phones. But what is it that all of these are mere concepts without a pre-scheduled date to launch even one?

Perhaps the main reason behind the fact is that the mobiles are not cost effective yet or the market awareness is not that good either. Anyway lets take a look at what the major manufacturers are doing.

Nokia

Nokia sells more than one in every three mobile phones sold in the world. And so the responsibility on their part is also maximum. They announced Evolve 3110 in Dec, 2007 - which is made of 50 percent renewable materials and comes in a box made of 60 percent recycled stuff. On the technical side, the Evolve’s charger is Nokia’s most efficient ever, which uses 94 percent below Energy Star specifications.

But they will not release any green phone this year rather they will work on green features like light sensor detecting natural light and thereby improving the efficiency of display. Most Nokia Phones now beep when charge is full indicating the user to take the charger off the plug. This type of features cut down the energy consumptions.

Sony Ericsson

The Green Heart concept phone was announced last year with some eco-features like no charger wastage which means its smart charger shuts off when the phone is fully charged. It is made from more earth friendly materials and it saves on paper by not including a manual, the manual is on the Internet. There are recycle zones for dropping these phones off when you don’t want them anymore.

Samsung

Samsung is surely a pioneer in their green product range with cell phones like E200 W510, or F268. The latest Solar Powered Samsung Blue Earth is one generation ahead of other green mobile phones.

Motorola

It launched W233 Renew to join the go green revolution. This phone is also made from recycled plastics and offers a recycling package.

Other Friends

Latin American Digicel, Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer ZTE will release solar powered low cost cell phone for people with limited or no electricity.

Conclusion

We can applaud the manufacturers for being environmentally friendly. But I doubt how are these green phones going to make a mark and stay, especially when most of us buy a new one every year and chuck the old one in the bin. The single most important thing that any of us can do is to recycle our old phone when we replace it with a new green one.

What we now need is more than honest intentions and concepts. We need you, your awareness and responsibilities towards nature. We also need mobile phone manufacturers to come out with a concrete plan to lure people to green gadgets. And more importantly, we better hurry.