Samsung Puts a Little Corn Into Its Cellphones

The external casing on the Samsung E200 Eco is made of corn-based material.

Samsung is hoping to steal a little of the Olympic spotlight in Beijing on Thursday as it unveils its latest “eco-phone.” The E200 Eco is the third phone Samsung has introduced this year with parts made from bioplastics — materials extracted from corn. It is the first, however, in which the entire case is bioplastic.

The external casing on the Samsung E200 Eco is made of corn-based material.Cheil Industries, a company that is part of the Samsung Group, has been developing these environmentally friendly materials.

The E200 Eco has a 1.3-megapixel camera, video messaging capabilities and an MP3 player. The phone will be available in Europe next month but does not yet have an American release date. As a bonus, the phone’s packaging is made from recycled materials.

In June, Samsung introduced two handsets in the Asian market, the W510 and F268, that it says are produced using techniques that eliminate harmful materials like lead, cadmium and mercury. The F268 and the new E200 Eco devices and their chargers are also free of a common flame retardant that can harm the environment. The F268 has an alarm “feature” that reminds users to unplug their chargers when the phone is fully charged.

Samsung isn’t alone in its research and development of renewable materials for cellphones. Nokia introduced the 3110 Evolve in December 2007. In May, the Business Standard reported that Nokia would bring 40 new biodegradable models to market by the end of 2008.

NEC introduced a bioplastic phone in Japan in 2006, and has been using plant-derived materials in its LaVie laptop line since 2004.

Samsung is testing bioplastics for other product lines, but has no firm plans to expand their use, Mr. ChiYoung Oh, environmental products manager at Samsung Electronics, said in an e-mail interview.

The question remains as to how far bioplastics will go to reduce the environmental impact of electronic devices. But Mr. Oh is confident that consumers are ready to pay more for green products. The “green consumer evolution,” he said, “is maturing in the existing Samsung consumer