User-Unfriendly Green Gear: Weird Solar-Powered Cell Phone

Imagine that you’re forced to call 911 for some extremely emergent reason – like, say, a psycho killer in a clown costume is chasing you with a chainsaw (my worst nightmare). You whip out your totally awesome solar-powered cell phone… but, wait. You’ve got to mess with weird little stickers before you can place a call.

Okay, so the clown scenario is a little far-fetched, but still – you want your cell phone to be ready when you need it. That makes the strange “Label With Green” phone concept a little hard to swallow, since you’re required to power individual components of the phone with ‘Eco-Green Electronic Labels’.

From Yanko Design, via Treehugger:

Upgrading a redundant cellphone means adding to the pile of toxic trash that accumulates all around the world. The Label With Green is a concept phone aims at weaning you off the upgrade mania. To power the phone you need to use ECO-Green Electronic Labels, which are solar paper labels that juice up the phones various components (display, speaker, keypad, camera, and solar battery) independently. So to turn on any function, say display, you need to stick on enough solar labels onto the rear cover to power it.

The more functions of the phone you want to use, the more solar stickers you need to paste on the rear.

The idea is to make you conscious of the amount of toxic waste being accumulated due to improper disposal of electronic gadgets, our greed for upgrades and the amount of energy we consume to power our stuff. Essentially you can use this concept for a variety of gadgets.

It’s an interesting idea, especially given all the toxic electronic waste that is generated every day in the form of outdated cell phones. But the concept needs some work. As Treehugger noted, the ‘Label with Green’ phone is great as an educational device, but those of us looking for a more environmentally friendly cell phone that’s actually usable will have to keep waiting.

Link [Yanko Design] via [Treehugger]

Drivers on Cell Phones Threaten Safety of Bicyclists

If you’ve ever seen someone yapping away on a cell phone while navigating an SUV full of children on a congested highway, swerving in and out of the lanes, you know how dangerous talking and driving can be. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people who are amazingly adept at multitasking.

And of course you’re one of those people, right? You can totally handle a business transaction with a client or an argument with your boyfriend while simultaneously operating a two-ton hunk of deadly machinery.

Except that you can’t. Nobody can. In fact, talking and driving – even hands-free – has been found to be just as dangerous as drunk driving. That puts us all at risk on the roads – but bicyclists are especially vulnerable, and one NRDC blogger points out the negative impact that could have on the environment.

If our streets aren’t safe and perceived as such, it will only be that much harder to convince people to leave their perceived fortresses-on-wheels and walk or bicycle instead.  Safety is one of the main arguments of the Complete Streets coalition (NRDC is a member) for making roadways more accessible to all types of users, not just drivers (”complete streets improve pedestrian safety” is the first-mentioned reason offered in the Coalition’s FAQs explaining its agenda).

Too true. There is absolutely nothing that anyone could be calling you about that can’t wait for you to at least pull into a parking lot. Do you really want to find out that grandpa kicked the bucket in the middle of rush hour traffic?

Don’t talk and drive – it’s really, really simple.

Link [NRDC]
Photo credit: Flickr user TalkingDC

Hungry Pelican Gets a Stomach Full of Cell Phone

A pelican looking for a tasty snack swallowed a cell phone at the Tauphaus Park Zoo in Idaho Falls last week.

Visitors saw a flock of pelicans playing with a cell phone and reported it to zoo officials, but by the time they got there, one of the pelicans had swallowed it. They couldn’t tell which one was the culprit, so they almost x-rayed the entire flock.

Apparently, all that metal and plastic didn’t agree with the curious pelican’s stomach, because it soon coughed it up.

“Luckily the bird regurgitated it so it wouldn’t harm him,” zoo superintendent Bill Gersonde told Idaho Falls’ KIDK News. “We just need folks to be really cautious when they’re in the zoo and remember that they’re guests in the animals’ homes and they need to keep their personal belongings as close to them as possible.”

What kind of dumbass throws their cell phone into a zoo enclosure?

Link [LA Times Blog]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Samsung’s Solar-Powered ‘Blue Earth’ Cell Phone

Samsung has unveiled what might just be the greenest cell phone ever in Barcelona this week – the solar-powered ‘Blue Earth’, which is made from recycled water bottles. The details are slow in coming, but we do know that the phone will have a touch screen and a pedometer that calculates how much CO2 you save each time you choose to walk instead of drive. An energy-saving mode will lower the backlight levels and switch off Bluetooth, and the solar panel provides enough juice to keep the phone going indefinitely.

Wired’s Gadget Lab is less than enthused, saying “This is just annoying, and exactly the sort of thing smug Prius owners would like. It reminds me of the kind of vegan who eats wholemeal pasta — a form of self flagellation designed only to telegraph their pious intentions to us less morally aware mortals.”

While smug Prius owners will undoubtedly love this phone, that doesn’t make it any less awesome (and how is owning a cool piece of green gadgetry self-flagellation?). Using the sun to power small gadgets is undeniably smart – think about how much energy will be saved if even a fraction of mobile phone users switch (only after their current phones croak, of course).

Samsung isn’t the only mobile company that announced a solar-powered phone at the Mobile World Congress 2009. LG has one of their own, with solar panels embedded into the battery cover – it’ll be released in the European market by the end of the year.

Link [Wired] + [LG]

The World’s First Carbon Neutral Cell Phone

Motorola has unveiled the world’s first carbon neutral cell phone, the Renew W233. Tackling the massive problem of e-waste, Motorola designed the Renew W233 to be the first certified Carbonfree cell phone on the market with 100% recyclable housing made from recycled water bottles.

Inhabitat reports that an astounding 426,000 cell phones are retired every single day in the United States, with most of them ending up in landfills. That is definitely a mind-boggling amount of waste, and as we’ve seen, e-waste isn’t pretty and is killing thousands of poor residents in developing countries where the waste is dumped.

From Inhabitat:

Motorola’s Renew W233 cellphone features an admirable set of sustainable features that directly address the phone’s carbon footprint and life cycle. By partnering up with Carbonfund.org Motorola offsets the energy to manufacture, distribute, and operate the phone by investing in renewable energy sources and reforestation. Once the phone reaches the end of its life cycle it can be easily recycled by placing it in a prepaid envelope that is provided in the box. Additionally, the phone’s packaging consumes 22% less material and the manual is printed on post consumer recycled paper with soy-based inks.

It’s about time that companies begin thinking about where their products will end up once their conventional usage is completed. After all, how can we as consumers be responsible for properly disposing of such items?

It’s nice that this phone has a recyclable housing, and it’s a commendable step forward for Motorola, but we’ve got to start demanding that manufacturers take responsibility for ALL parts of their products. Otherwise we’ll never stop the mountains of toxic e-waste from accumulating.

Link [Inhabitat]

Is Your Cell Phone Drenched in Blood?

Cell phones were once a luxury, something that people thought were sort of frivolous. But in today’s age of ever-advancing technology, we’ve come to consider them an absolute necessity. Now practically everyone owns one – and we replace them with new ones every 1-2 years. But at what cost? It turns out that a vital raw material used in many cell phones is often mined illegally, and by slave labor.

As we told you back in July, coltan – short for Columbite-tantalite – is refined to create a heat-resistant metal powder called tantalum that sells for $100 a pound, and illegal operations have cropped up in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Rwandan rebel soldiers were sending prisoners – including children – down into the dangerous mines to do the dirty work. All so we can enjoy our electronics.

Now, we’re being warned that the coltan mining in Congo is threatening the endangered Mountain Gorilla.

From The Inquisitr:

As well the mining of Coltan is located in the area as the Kahuzi Biega National Park which is the home of the Mountain Gorilla and because of this mining the gorilla population has been decimated. Whether it be from starvation because the mining is removing their habitat or from being shot to feed the people doing the mine this need for Coltan has a growing effect on both the people and the animals of the Congo.

Watch this video on coltan mining to get a real sense of the problem. It really makes you think about whether these gadgets are really worth it, doesn’t it?

Learn more about the effects of coltan mining and what electronics companies have to say for themselves in our previous post, ‘African Minerals and Electronics: Technology Soaked in Blood’.

Link [The Inquisitr]
Photo credit: Pulitzer Center

Nokia Cell Phone Made of Sustainably Harvested Wood

If there’s one thing I hate about modern gadgets, it’s all the plastic.  I’ve long looked back at wooden electronics wishing you could still find up-to-date versions of the sophisticated designs.  Plus, there’s the fact that so many plastic gadgets contain toxic materials, and all that plastic ends up getting thrown away.  Well, Nokia might just give me the cell phone of my dreams, if this new prototype made of sustainable timber ends up going into production mode.

From Cell Phone Beat:

Mobile phones with metallic bodies, which in the designer mode are even seen studded with diamonds and crystals, will have an environment-friendly competitor, if the eco-friendly wooden Nokia concept is realized sometime in the distant future. The natural soulful look of the phone, fitted with advanced technical features, will make it the most sought after device by environmentally-conscious, cell phone users, looking for a phone that does not contaminate the environment with its toxic elements.

The eco-friendly wooden Nokia concept phone features an 8-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, speaker and Symbian S60 Operating System.  The perfect combination of old-school looks and modern functionality.  Sweet!  I wonder if I could bribe Nokia to send me a prototype even if this design doesn’t go on the market…

Link [Cell Phone Beat]

Cell Phones Blamed for Fatal Lightning Strikes

Throughout the month of July alone, lightning has killed and injured more than a dozen people according to Russian officials. Three sunbathers and one woman talking on her cell phone while walking along a river were killed, and a representative from local weather observation FOBOS says he believes that the accidents might be connected to increased use of portable electronic devices.  Cell phones and mp3 players are said to be electromagnetic field carriers, therefore making them conductors that would attract lightning.

Shit.  Now in addition to going sterile and getting brain cancer, we have to worry about lightning hitting our cell phones.

Link [InventorSpot]
Photo credit: Flickr user DDFic

Wind-Powered Phone Charging Stations at Glastonbury Festival

Attendees at the Glastonbury Festival in the UK last weekend had a cool, sustainable way to keep their cell phones charged up: freestanding wind-powered charging stations. The stations, called ‘Recharge Pods‘, were available free of charge.

Springwise has it:

Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It’s actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year’s festival through a partnership with Gotwind, and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival, furnishing power equivalent to what would be needed to power a DJ booth for Groove Armada for 88 hours. The recharge pod will be stationed within the Pennard Hill camping grounds at Glastonbury throughout the weekend of June 27–29, when the event takes place.

How awesome! Fun and green, we need lots more of that. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets people (especially young people) excited about sustainability.

Link [Springwise]

Apple Working on Solar Powered Portable Devices

There’s no way around it: portable electronic devices are here to stay. We’ve all got them: cell phones, electronic organizers, laptop computers, mp3 players and other handhelds. While it’s great that many of them are getting lighter and smaller, what we’d really love is to be able to charge them with the power of the sun. Well, we’re getting closer.

TrendHunter Magazine has it:

Imagine your iPhone or iPod automatically charging by the sun as you use it. A new Apple patent promises exactly that, by exploring the use of solar power in various versions of their mobile devices: iPhone, iPods and portable computers. The mechanism augments the devices, including the transparent screens, with layers of solar cells,.

According to the patent, “Solar cells are typically stacked with other layers made of transparent or semi-transparent materials… Some of these layers may be used for display or input purposes, and some layers may be coated with various materials or they may be etched with product logos or other patterns.”

We have all of our fingers and toes crossed on this one. How great would it be to sit on the beach or in your garden, with your phone and iPod charging next to you, no cords required? Steve Jobs, you’re our only hope, give us solar powered handhelds!

Link [TrendHunter Magazine]
Photo credit: Flickr user ernop