In a time where it is a very wise decision to go green, it is a very smart choice to purchase a laptop that is environment friendly. With such consideration, one should purchase a laptop instead of a desktop PC because it is much smaller; therefore, when the time comes for its disposal, there is less impact on the environment. Because of the laptop's smaller size, it also comes with smaller parts. Also, when the time of its disposal comes, there are less hazardous parts to throw away such as hard drives and CD/DVD drives. Even the plants where laptops are processed produce emissions that are less harmful than that of plants that process desktop PCs. This is much better for our environment. One more factor, which makes laptops more environment friendly is because of its compliance with regulations such as WEEE or Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment and RoHS or Restrictions of Hazardous Substances. These regulations are enforced so that computers will be lead-free, and that they follow disposal codes. These are enforced by European organizations. In most computers, lead is the primary element needed to put together parts of a computer, but they can be extremely harmful to the environment. By complying to the standards of WEEE and RoHS, better ways of building PCs are needed.

An interesting player in the eco-friendly laptop market is the "one Laptop Per Child" project. Their missions is to produce a low cost laptop - the "XO Laptop" - in order to revolutionize the way the world's children are educated. The purpose of the project is to get laptops in the hands of people in third world countries that would not otherwise have access to this technology. But the project is also proving that laptops can be produced for a very low cost - laptops which weigh less than one kilogram and rely on no electricity.

We already see the boom of laptop sales these recent years. Many are predicting that laptop will eventually replace the desktop computer in the long run. Studies would show that an average laptop will stay and be used by the owner for a period of 3 years and after that it then goes to the garbage. And this is another issue that we should address as humans. In the following section you will see some insights about the issue of disposal and some ideas that may address the issue.

1. Problem: Most laptop housing nowadays are made of petroleum-filled plastics. Solution: Plastics or polymer is an old technology that is still evolving until now. Maybe scientists can design a polymer that can easily decompose; this should not be far from reality.

2. Problem: Laptop's power supply. Solution: Solar powered laptop. It is beneficial to the environment to use the sun's power to help recharge your laptop.

3. Problem: Lead products in the waste. Solution: As mentioned above, the European Union has enacted legal restrictions on lead. President Bush has also followed suit with standards for American lead use.

4. Problem: Spinning hard drives. Solution: Use of flash memory hard drives. With the use of this type of hard drive, there will be no excessive usage of watts due to the moving parts of the hard drive. This helps reduce energy usage to up to 10 percent. This year, Dell has introduced a laptop that offers a 32 GB solid-state hard drive.

There are now a number of laptops that have won awards for being the most environmentally friendly. These include the XO Laptop, Lenovo Thinkpad X300, Dell D360, HP 2710p, and the Toshiba Portege R500.