At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the most exciting appearance wasn’t will.i.am or Kevin Spacey, but, rather, a new cell phone from Samsung that could be poised to lead the way to more earth-friendly mobiles.

The casing on the touch-screen Samsung Blue Earth is made from recycled PCM plastic, which is usually garnered from plastic water bottles, and the phone offers a solar-charging option with the solar panel on the back of the unit. Even better, the Blue Earth will be free of the potentially-harmful Brominated Flame Retardents, Beryllium and Phthalates and will feature an energy-saving mode that dims the back light and nixes Blue Tooth. Although the emphasis is on sun-derived power for the Blue Earth, a charger–maybe a universal one?–will be included for times when cloud cover–or your schedule–interferes, but it will be five-star Energy Star rated and, like the phone itself, skip the suspicious substances.

Even the software suggested for the phone has a green bent; one program functions as a pedometer, measuring how far you’ve walked and how many carbon emissions you’ve saved by doing so. It’s not as much of an advancement as the other components of the cell, but it could be for good for environmental awareness none the less.

The biggest problem with the Blue Earth? It’s more of a mythical being than a purchasable product for now. There was only one model–a prototype–available for viewing at the MWC and Samsung kept it behind glass for the duration, never announcing a release date or price range (although there’s an expectation that the phone might be on shelves by the second half of this year).

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