Asus were another computer manufacturer at CeBit, Hanover to have something green up its sleeve - to the delight of Pandas worldwide - Laptops with outer casings made from bamboo. Asus aren’t the first to come up with this sort of idea. The ‘Wood’ M-ATX PC has been on around for quite a while.

This is a great concept which still may have legs - and one which we are very keen to keep an eye on. However, if the concept does come to market, it will only be a first step. Apple, for example, now make all their outer casings out of aluminum - which is 100% re-cycled thanks to the value of the metal. Like a trusted partner - it’s what’s inside that counts. Motherboards, circuitry, hard drives, video cards, monitors etc are all the main causes of un-recyclable e-waste.Nice idea Asus - but with no firm commitments yet to move beyond concept stage, this may be little more than a PR exercise to stir attention at CeBit - Green PR points seem to be a dime a dozen right now.

The computer may be bamboo on the outside, but the inside is still made of components that will end up on the e-waste tips of China and India as children from peasant communities blow torch their way through toxic chemicals to scrape a living. A more effective way to make computers greener would be to buy sell or trade computers used or pre-owned, there by reducing the amount of new hardware being made and ultimately ending up as e-waste. Imagine if you couldn’t buy a used car? Ford’s shares would quadruple over night. trade 2 save advocates expanding the pre-owned electronics market in the maturity that the pre-owned car market is today. Only then will e-waste be truly brought under contro.