It’s small, it’s slick and hey, don’t we all want those great new features? Many of us own at least one and as of last year, there were over 4 billion cell phones on the planet.

But underneath that shiny surface, the nifty device you carry in your pocket contains toxics like phthalates, PVC, cadmium and lead, just to name a few. All of this eventually ends up in the environment, either seeping from our landfill sites or incinerated into our atmosphere.

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Going green
Some mobile phone manufacturers and service providers finally say they intend to go green. After all ‘green’ is the buzzword these days. The phone industry must also have seen the ‘there-is-business-to-be-done' sign.

Samsung, a big name in mobile phone manufacturing, have just launched several so-called Eco phones. They are handsets partially made with bio-plastics, solar panels for partially charging the batteries and extra features to save your batteries. So only 'partial' gains so far, but the company says that it’s going to invest 4 billion US dollars in research and development of environmentally friendly products in the next four years.

Second life
Another big name is T-Mobile. This mobile service provider is also making an effort trying to green up its act, according to Claire de Rooij of T-mobile:

“One of the programs we just started is focused on a second life for phones. People can drop off their old phones with us. The ones that don’t work go into recycling. The ones that are still good are shipped off to Africa or China. There they are sold for a small price. The profits go to charity.”

Subsidised phones
In theory it all sounds very good. But it’s only a start. There is after all one ‘hot potato’ in the mobile phone business that impacts the environment in a major way. Subsidy!

In most European countries and also in the US, when you get a one or two year contract with a mobile service provider, as an incentive, they give you a phone for free or a very cheap phone. Without a contract that phone could cost you a couple of hundred euros. In other words they are subsidising the cost of your phone.

When your contract runs out you are free to shop around for a new deal and a new phone. Often times your service provider doesn’t want to lose you as a customer so they will offer you yet another phone, and so on.

Obviously the mobile service providers aren’t happy with this system. But in this competitive market they deem this situation inevitable. In some countries like Italy and Belgium, service providers were forbidden by law to subsidise phones. The result? A lot more people on the street with older phones. If only the providers could sit down together and come to an agreement to end those subsidies. But anti-monopoly legislation outlaws agreements like that.

So should other national governments interfere and prohibit subsidies? Most of the manufacturers are opposed to it. Is the current situation so sweet for them that they are caught in a Catch 22? After all, those subsidies make them sell phones like it’s going out of style.

But, a Samsung spokesperson says, "without us selling substantial volume there would not be enough money to invest in research and development in environmentally sound products.”

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