In the past decade, companies have made products that cause less environmental harm or use less energy. But the environmentalists want them to look beyond profit motives when it comes to deciding whether to implement environmentally friendly changes to their product lines.

A greener printer being researched at Hewlett-Packard is a case in point. A team of 30 volunteers at HP created a prototype for a printer with a biodegradable plastic case. HP has no plans to begin selling the printer, but it has drawn high praise from within the company.

"This is an example of innovative thinking that goes on at HP," said Walt Rosenberg, vice president for corporate social responsibility at HP. "There is a whole network of employees who have tremendous passion around these issues."

Chief Executive Carly Fiorina saw the prototype and praised it as an example of how HP is ``designing for the environment'' in a recent speech. Fiorina has said HP's concern for the environment will ultimately be a competitive advantage over its rivals. But some environmentalists are harder to please.

"HP pays better lip service than other companies," said James Burgett, executive director of the Alameda County Computer Resource Center in Oakland, "which provides recycled computers to low-income people." But they are in the business of selling computers. They encourage people to upgrade often. Sure, they can design a biodegradable printer. That encourages a throw-away mentality among consumers.

"Burgett would prefer that HP create a quality printer that lasts a long time and can be easily recycled for others to use."

But HP researchers believe there's value in creating a printer with a case that degrades in landfill conditions within three months. A biodegradable product would at least eliminate the need to incinerate plastics that aren't recyclable, a practice that has drawn criticism from As You Sow, a San Francisco non-profit that urges companies to be socially responsible.

And plastics are a big part of the waste stream and they cost a lot to transfer to recycling or landfill sites, says Mike Priparian, member of the state of California's Integrated Waste Management Board, the agency responsible for state landfills. Product designers acknowledge that there are trade-offs to environmental design and therefore they have to look at the environmental impact of making a change on a product's entire life cycle and its effect on the supply chain, says Donald Brown, director of environmental affairs at Dell.

Jones Oliver, a researcher at HP's Corvallis, Ore., site who headed the biodegradable-printer design, said HP's prototype used a type of plastic based on corn starch that falls apart much more easily than standard petroleum-based plastics. The metal engine for the printer can be taken to HP's recycling facilities in Roseville and crunched into pieces that can be resold on the secondary metals market.

In the works for a year

HP declined to say why it hasn't begun making the biodegradable printer, which has been under design for about a year. Some observers wonder whether or not biodegradable plastic is cheap enough or strong enough to replace oil-based plastic.

The design effort is part of a larger initiative at HP, where a team of dozens of "product stewards" led by John Birkit works with HP's product designers to deliver greener products.

In general, computer makers have redesigned computers so that they are smaller, use less energy and use snap-on cases instead of metal screws. They have removed most plastic foam stuffing from product boxes and replaced them with paper-based stuffing.

"HP has the high end on recycling. But as much as these companies want to promote environmental values, unless they can sell it as good for business, it doesn't go anywhere," said Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Group in San Jose. "Old-fashioned green washing is just another money-making scheme."

Burgett, the Alameda computer-recycling advocate, would also like to see HP create inks that aren't toxic or don't involve the use of toxic chemicals in their creation. HP officials say they have looked at soy ink but have yet to deploy it. They currently use water-based inks.

But HP notes that it has gone to great expense on environmental projects, particularly in its recycling program that started with laser-jet cartridges in 1992 and has expanded to inkjet cartridges and computers. It has set up a system that makes it easy to recycle toner cartridges by making consumers aware that they can get a postage-paid package for returning the cartridge.

In 2002, HP recycled 10 million laser-printer cartridges, and it has set up a facility in Nashville, Tenn., to recycle inkjet cartridges. HP doesn't turn a profit on the recycling program but undertakes it anyway, the company says.

But there are limits to how much HP will spend. HP is happy to recycle its products, but the company still believes that the cost of shipping products to recycling centers should be handled largely by local governments or consumers.

Other computer makers are also increasingly paying attention to environmental issues. Sony has a Walkman music player on sale in Japan that uses corn starch-based plastic. It also has a family of "eco-friendly" products on display at Sony's Metreon entertainment complex in San Francisco. And in the United States it is using recycled plastic in its Wega line of television sets as well as dozens of other products.

Dell has come under fire for using prison labor to break apart recycled computers, but the company defends its practices, saying there are social benefits to putting prisoners to work and that the break-down process is safe.

Consumers start to care

"Consumers haven't cared about environmental issues when buying a computer until the last year or so," said Tim Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies International in Campbell. "Now it's been in the advertising and it has gotten mindshare through the recycling issue."

So far, only 11 percent of obsolete computers are being recycled, according to the National Safety Council. Some 63 million computers are expected to be retired in 2005, the council predicts.

Recycling is gaining momentum as an issue with increased awareness that throwing electronic products in the trash creates toxic hazards, particularly because devices like computer monitors contain hazards like mercury, cadmium and bromine. State Sen. Byron Sher, D-San Jose, has sponsored a bill (SB 20) to require computer makers to recycle their products for free. That bill is expected to come up for a vote this summer.

And stringent environmental regulations are going into effect in Europe in 2005 and 2006. The European Union will put the burden of recycling electronic products on computer makers. And the union is requiring them to eliminate harmful materials like lead solder. HP is working with the rest of the industry to come up with solutions but doesn't have the answers yet.

It isn't clear if Europe's regulations will take hold in California or the rest of the United States, but computer makers are bracing to deal with them. "Consumers will eventually drive this," says Smith at the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

"It's like how Detroit objected when fuel-efficient cars came out." Sadly, says Doug Smith, director of corporate affairs at Sony, "We haven't seen evidence that consumers care a whole lot about environmental issues."