Sprint Nextel and Samsung have announced Samsung Reclaim as the first phone in the US constructed from eco-friendly bio-plastic materials. With a hardware casing made with corn-derived bio-plastics, a charger that consumes 12 times less power than the Energy Star recommendation and packing that is 70 per cent recyclable, the Reclaim has many elements that make it sustainable.

Operating on 3G network, Samsung Reclaim boasts One Click, Sprint’s customisable user interface with quick access to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. The full-featured phone offers: a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard; 2 megapixel camera with 3x digital zoom and camcorder; advanced stereo Bluetooth 2.0; expandable memory storage up to 32GB; an integrated Web browser; and two colour options – Earth Green and Ocean Blue.

Its bio-plastic material, made from corn makes up 40 per cent of the Reclaim’s outer casing. Samsung Reclaim is claimed to be free of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), phthalates and nearly free of brominated flame retardants (BFR). The outer packaging and the phone tray inside the box are made from 70 per cent recycled materials. The images and text on the box as well as the phone warranty information are printed with soy-based ink.

Researched by Maninder

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics has announced a green management initiative which hopes to make it a leading eco-friendly company by the year 2013. In doing so, it pinpointed four core objectives as part of its “Eco-Management 2013″ plan, which includes:

    * Reducing emissions of greenhouse gas from manufacturing facilities by 50 percent while cutting indirect emissions from all products by 84 million tons
    * Ensuring all of its products are both eco-friendly and exceed global eco-mark standards
    * Investing approximately $4.3 billion in eco-management initiatives
    * Furthering green partnerships with suppliers and partners

The company will attempt to identify new recyclable and organic materials for use in items such as laptops and cell phones.

Researched by Maninder