With their newest eco-friendly phone – the Blue Earth, Samsung has ditched many of the toxic materials, including flame retardants and phthalates, and built the casing from both renewable and recycled plastic. The integrated solar panel is the coolest thing – expose the panel to one hour of sun for 10 minutes of talk, and to 12 hours of sun for a full four hours of chatting. Samsung says the solar panel increases the phone’s energy efficiency by 34.6%.

This Blue Earth phone has a full-color touchscreen. It also has a built-in “Eco-walk” pedometer function that counts your steps and tells you how much CO2 you’re saving by walking instead of driving.

The Blue Earth should be available for purchase in Europe by the end of 2009. When it will grace the shores of of North America is anyone’s guess…2012??