FIDO Goes Green!!!

Fido Canada has released a new phone, and its green!! No not only in colour, but in what is said to be carbon emissions.

Motorola's W233 is what FIDO is given me as a choice for trying to do my part for the environment....oooh and its cheap too....kinda what might be expected with a bare-bones phone of this sort.

So what are my thoughts??? Well, apart from carbon neutral phones...which I'm reading up on as I type this, I find the concept intriguing. Motorola produced the casing of the phone from recycled water bottles and off-set the production CO2 with credits purchased from CarbonFund.com. Given my personal interest with mining and Africa, I can safely say it would be nice if the metals inside were certified "ethically" produced (so no DRC metals!).

I know I know, I might be wanting more then Motorola is willing to give at the moment, but a girl can dream.

I think its an awesome move by FIDO, who I am more likely to switch to so as to get access to this phone....That's right Solo, kiss my $50/month goodbye. But there are a few things to consider.

The W233 may be the only phone I know by name, but it is certainly not exempt from a bit of critical analysis. Which brings me to my next point. Given the crazy amount of waste in the cell-phone business, new phones coming out all the time and people upgrading; is a green phone really green when you consider the fact that you need to ditch your old phone, in order to get this new one?

I'm all for recycling and being green, but maybe the idea is to reduce crap we have, not upgrade to more stuff just to say your "green" while creating more waste for masses of the poor the world over to have to "disassemble" and make a shitty living on. If you don't know what I'm referring to check (google) where most electronic waste is shipped to and what is done with it.

More so than anything, given people's excessive need of many electronic items, the smart thing would be to produce a phone that is made of recycled products, and eliminates the need for a camera/mp3 player/tiny computer. The W233 does not do this, if anything by getting this phone you must also buy all the above separetly (especially if you depend on your phone for pic taking). The idea is to simplify life by getting less crap, but when you do get stuff try and combine everything so that you have a 2for1 or 4for1 deal. Kinda like an awesome much improved version of the Apple iphone, only made with the idea of the Mototola W233.

I congratulate Fido and Motorola, and if I'm going to switch my plan I may consider the W233 and Fido (as my provider) for that matter , but I may be more willing to do this if some or all of the above suggestions are met.

What it comes down to kids, is the commercialization of environmentalism. Its all good and dandy that companies want to be green, but maybe just maybe the whole economic system needs to switch from a waste-economy (cradle-to-grave) to a cradle-to-cradle system.

Any electronic purchase is a purchase of "want", so lets work to limit the "want" and when a "must" is encountered, we make that purchase a smart one. If the W233 came out last year when I signed-up for my Solo account I would of gotten it, but now I may just do something more green and get a smart-phone and pay off some of the carbon emissions online myself. Seems more like something I might do, if I need a new phone, this is kinda a touchy subject as I usually keep my phones for about 4 yrs. But I do need a digi. camera and my cellphone plan isn't so awesome that I want to keep it, so stay tuned for my search of a digi.cam/cell phone (2for1 deal) both awesome in price and utility.

This brings me to Samsung's Blue Earth phone; a smart phone of sorts with solar panels on the back to help with charging. A brilliant idea, and I believe it has a camera too!!! Now let the green cell-phone makers wars begin!!! Its all about competition, and we need more of it to get amazing products that are smartly designed.



until another day,
yours truly,
-anna