LG Remarq Cellphone Brings Eco-Friendly Texting To Sprint

In case you've been living under a rock, the "green" movement is out in full force. Companies have falling over themselves in order to push out "eco-friendly" products, and while some of this stuff is just marketing fluff, Sprint has made a solid effort to actually offer phones that are somewhat less damaging to our Earth. Just a few months after the Reclaim hit the company as one of the greenest phones to ever ship without a solar panel on the rear, the LG Remarq has shipped in order to give environmentally-minded shoppers another option.

The Remarq is one of the most unique looking phones we have seen in a long while. That's an impressive feat given the copycat world that we live in, and while it's no smartphone, it's a texters dream come true. The highly compact (but a bit chubby) phone is packaged in materials that are 100% recycable, and the full QWERTY keyboard should make SMS, Facebook updates and sending mobile e-mail a breeze. It will ship in both Turqouise and Dark Silver, and it will be one of the cheapest phones on Sprint's network. It will be available on May 9 in all Sprint retail channels for $0.00 after rebates and a 2-year contract; when we said "cheap," we meant "cheap!"

Earth-friendly engineering

Available in either dark silver or turquoise, LG Remarq and its packaging are designed with environmentally responsible components including:

• The outer casing is made from 19 percent post-consumer recycled plastic and the handset as a whole is 87 percent recyclable. The device meets strict RoHS standards for restriction of hazardous materials such as lead, mercury and cadmium.
• Remarq contains low levels of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFR): two materials commonly targeted on green electronics guidelines.
• Powered by an Energy Star-qualified charger which meets the energy-efficiency standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
• The packaging is fully recyclable packaging featuring a brown craft paper exterior and made from 87 percent post consumer material (PCM). The phone tray inside the box is made from 100 percent PCM. The images and text on the box, as well as all in-box materials, are printed with soy ink.
• The paper manual has been replaced with an online user manual that users can access beginning May 9.

In addition, LG Remarq comes pre-loaded with an innovative Eco Calculator application that allows customers to calculate C0₂ reduction savings by walking or cycling as opposed to driving their car. The reduction is calculated in pounds of C0₂ or trees planted