The Consumer Electronics Show is all about the sizzle of shiny and new, but what happens to your old gadgets when you are ready for an upgrade? This week, the EPA announced an easy cellphone recycling program partnership with key phone device makers and service providers. The goal: redirect the 130 million cellphones that will be retired this year to a responsible afterlife. Through this partnership, there are multiple mail-in and drop-off opportunities to be reborn through cell phone donation, or recycled with care.

© Basel Action Network 2006

The tale of what happens to your old, forgotten television sets is sad, shocking, and may even turn you off from the very idea of recycling your gadgets. So before we begin, let’s start out by noting that there are responsible ways to recycle or decommission your old TVs and other electronics waste that you have sitting in your garage or storage closets. We’ll get there. But first – take a look at the recent TakeBack My TV campaign, brought to you by the Basel Action Network

November 15th is America Recycles Day! Time for New Yorkers to celebrate by finding a home for that used cellphone collection you’re storing somewhere. Nokia recently announced a recycling campaign to collect 100,000 unwanted mobile devices between now and November 15th, and has made it even easier by allowing drop of at their flagship store in Manhattan at 5 East 57th Street.

Overall, coffee machines and espresso makers are not the greatest energy drains on our monthly electric bill, so the green options are more subtle and complex than choosing a washer/dryer or refrigerator. For larger, energy-consuming devices, the EPA provides the Energy Star system and manufacturers themselves provide detailed specifications and product back-story to explain efficiency enhancements in design. Coffee makers are not evaluated by Energy Star, nor by Consumer Report’s Greener Options website. Additionally, there are few companies that promote the eco-impact of their coffee making machines.

The dishwasher is a modern convenience that saves us hours of cleaning and drying time, not to mention pruny dishpan hands. But is the dishwasher an extravagance in our eco-conscious age? You might be surprised! The answer is no – and that’s a win-win for those who believe that technology can lead to a greener, more prosperous future.

We’ve enjoyed covering the surging interest in eco-fashion at Inhabitat – particularly new designers experimenting with bio-based materials and organic sources, produced with green and socially conscious methods. But the next time you covet the latest NaturevsFuture corn-based dress or Linda Loudermilk bamboo and silk trousers, consider this: the majority of a garment’s ecological impact occurs during the washing phase. So with that in mind, this week’s installment of our Green Your Appliances series focuses on your washer and dryer.

This summer with our new special series we’ll be investigating four different home appliances to learn about efficient energy use, green design, and eco-friendly choices. First stop on our green appliances tour: the refrigerator.

Apple just launched their newest line of desktop iMacs – slim, graceful, and made from glass and aluminum. “Aluminum is durable and lightweight; recyclers love it,” said Steve Jobs. “Glass is elegant, very scratch resistant and very recyclable.” These are likely the first Apple products designed with ecology and environmental issues in mind, and while the eyecandy iMac may still be a long ways off from serious ecological sustainability, we appreciate the efforts being made by Apple to integrate stylish aesthetics with more thoughtful material choices.

Greenpeace is conducting a market survey of the most environmentally friendly consumer electronic products currently on the market. After several “green electronics guide” reports that rated electronics makers of big brands, and their Greener Apple campaign, Greenpeace is now looking to evaluate gadgets at the product level. This means that companies large and small will be evaluated.

If your company has a product in the computer, mobile phone, PDA, MP3 player or games console categories that is less toxic, easier to recycle and more energy efficient than your competitors Greenpeace would like to hear from your company.

Download the pdf of entry form for more details on criteria and entry details: Greenpeace Electronics Survey.

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Our story “Greenwash Your Floors with the Swiffer” launched an interesting debate on our site about greenwashing and eco design . A commenter named Kim called on us to move beyond criticism and contact the designers directly…

This week, HP announced the greenest computer ever – the RP5700, and was awarded the first “gold” rating by EPEAT. How does HP make it to gold? First, by redesigning for end of life – 95% of components are recyclable, and the internal chassis can be taken apart by hand with no need for special tools for easy disassembly. Toxic and hazardous materials have been eliminated to meet the EU’s tight regulations, and both the plastic casing and external cardboard packaging source a percentage of post–consumer waste.

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In a reversal of Apple’s long-held lipped and secretive stance, yesterday Steve Jobs announced the company’s environmental policies. Responding to the Greenpeace campaign for a greener Apple, Jobs acknowledged a failure to communicate that – actually – Apple is doing quite well on the environmental front.

Take a poll on any city street, and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t admire Apple’s clean, innovative product design. In the past 5 years, with the success of the iPod and power PCs, Mac has come to dominate the high-end consumer electronic space, with their clean, minimalist aesthetic. With such a prestigious design-driven brand, one would think that Apple would be leading the way in the green design revolution. Sadly, this is not the case – Apple is actually lagging behind companies like Dell and HP – and because of this, Greenpeace has spearheaded a creative campaign to green Apple.

Greenpeace Lauds Lenovo, Attacks Apple

With their newest Green Electronics Guide Greenpeace has just released their latest rankings on the “greenness” of various electronics companies. What does it mean for a company to be green? For Greenpeace, it would seem that savvy web corporate social responsibility is the ultimate measure of a company’s green health. There is something suspect in Greenpeace’s latest installment of the Green Electronics Guide, as the guide rates electronics brands on their web-based chemical policy reports, rather than on the environmental impact of the companies or products themselves.

How Green is that Laptop? Ask Walmart.

Walmart knows its own power. Following the release of a packaging sustainability scorecard last year, Walmart has followed up with a call to the consumer electronics industry – go green and prove it. In partnership with The Green Electronics Council’s EPEAT program (which we’ve mentioned before), Walmart will co-develop a standards scorecard that will evaluate products for energy efficiency, durability, upgradability, end-of-life, packaging, and use of innovative (less toxic) materials. Big business saves the world?

Our first week’s ASK INHABITAT focuses on green electronics — and to deal with this often complex subject matter we’ve brought in Jennifer Van Der Meer, product designer, research consultant, chair of O2-NYC and sustainable electronics guru extraordinaire…