If you want a green iPhone, you’re best bet is to get a cover or a custom paint job because the real green factor seems far off for now. The latest iPhone, the 3GS, has, like its predecessors, met with disappointment from environmentalists, who were hoping that Apple (a company promoting a message of eco-friendliness more and more these days) would use the opportunity of a new model to change some of the environmentally damaging properties of the phone.

Unlike some of Apple’s computers—which it’s been working on greening—the iPhone features the kind of toxic materials that land electronics low on green ranking lists, like polyvinyl chloride plastics and brominated flame retardants. These harmful chemicals linger long after consumers have given up their cell phones for new models and can make it difficult to recycle other components. After the first iPhone release, Greenpeace published a report called “Missed Call: the iPhone’s Hazardous Chemicals” highlighting some of the issues caused by the elements used in the phone, including reproductive problems, and they repeated their concerns when the second generation of the iPhone showed up no different environmentally than its predecessor. With other cell phone companies hard at work on phones that charge wirelessly or via solar and eliminating toxic chemicals and virgin plastics from their handsets, Apple may well be falling short of environmental cell phone standards in its quest to offer the most technologically advanced phone on the market.

Chemical components aside, Apple did get slightly greener with the release of the 3GS thanks to the potato starch packaging inside the box, which they chose over the traditional plastic trays of the first generation iPhone, and are more recyclable and produce fewer carbon emissions. And don’t forget the eco-friendly applications for the iPhone, either—even Greenpeace could get past their complaints about Apple’s wonder phone long enough to make an app.

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