My love for Nokia‘s is very evident on my blog and I often find myself in the middle of iPhone vs BlackBerry vs Nokia arguments, and many times I win those arguments. I’m also fairly concerned for the environment and ever since IslandChic got involved in Carbon Emissions Trading and the Kyoto policy, I have taken an interest as well and did quite a bit of reading up on the matter.

I’m no saint though, I drive to work in a 2.0litre engined car, I could do a million things to reduce my carbon footprint, but I do

• unplug devices that are not in use
• once fully charged, remove teh cellphone charger,
• shower instead of bath
• have the car cleaned using a bucket and not a hosepipe
• switch unnecessary lights off, etc

My point is, that even though I am concious about the impact of global warming and I do constantly remind myself of my contribution to the problem, I do not do nearly enough to help.

The guys at Nokia have been helping though. For many years now, Nokia has been actively pursueing green technologies and methods of reducing the problem. Nokia handsets are now free of PVC, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBB) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE).

2/3rds of the energy used by a mobile phone is that which is consumed while the mobile phone is fully charged, but remains plugged into a charger. Nokia has realised this and have introduces “No Load” chargers, which ultimately switches the charger off once the phone is fully charged. I have also noticed that on my N97, when the phone is fully charged, or when I remove the charger or USB cable from the device, a reminder message is displayed encouraging users to unplug the charger.

All very subtle changes to the user, but the massive impact it could have when considering that there are almost 2 billion Nokia’s in circulation is quite impressive.

Check out the phone below that uses sugary liquid to power the device. In the images, the device is powered with Coke and a single topup of Coke is said to last 3 to 4 times longer than a single charge of a normal battery. I have included the original article text below the pics as well.

How cool is this?

A green phone for Nokia

This is the client project for designing an eco friendly phone for Nokia. Through my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment.  The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable. Meanwhile, it brings a whole new perception to batteries and afternoon tea.

Check out Nokia’s Enviroment portal for more info on Nokia’s projects.