One of the first to make good on the green promises carriers, vendors and handset manufacturers in the past year, T-Mobile today began offering Motorola’s recycled water bottle-made Renew handset for only $9.99 with a two-year service agreement. The Moto W233 Renew, which Moto says can deliver nine hours of talk time, will be an exclusive to T-Mobile customers for the first six months. The phone is completely recyclable and packaged with materials printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, along with a prepaid envelop for consumers to ship in their old device for recycling.
Developed through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Moto claims it can offset the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation, thus making it the first carbon-neutral mobile phone.
To further the eco-friendly theme, T-Mobile offers customers the option to sign up for paperless billing, even planting a tree for each one who did in 2008. Through a partnership with Arbor Day Foundation, the total trees planted topped 500,000 last year. T-Mobile and Moto both make it easy for consumers to recycle old handsets, PDAs, wireless computer cards or accessories. Both companies accept these at their retail store or through the mail via a prepaid label printed from T-Mobile’s Web site or Motorola’s site if it is a Moto product. All proceeds from T-Mobile’s handset recycling program are used to support its Huddle Up program, responsible for the company’s social investments, and a portion of Moto’s proceeds goes to schools participating in Race to Recycle, a program in the company’s sustainability practice.
Moto may be focusing in on the higher-end smartphone segment in hopes of saving the brand, but the Renew is anything but. At only $10, it could be perfect for the mobile user who is both cheap and eco-conscious – two popular themes in today’s credit crunch. The handset isn’t entirely barebones either – it features a music player, SMS and MMS, games, a MicroSD slot, hands-free headset and will be compatible with T-Mobile’s popular MyFave service. With a (true-to-its-cause) dark green, water bottle shell, it’s not the most attractive handset on the market, but it is the first all-out environmentally friendly effort by a carrier and handset OEM. That alone should be worth the $10 for a lot of T-Mobile customers.
For more on the industry’s green practices, check out Telephony’s series on the topic: http://connectedplanetonline.com/green/