"It's not that the PC industry is at odds with Mother Nature. Many tech companies have been making big, public commitments to green products and processes--and not just around April's annual "

" program lets you make a small donation to two environmental organizations while buying a notebook or desktop PC. Retailers like Radio Shack and Best Buy have electronics-recycling programs for disposing of unwanted cell phones, batteries, and other products. (The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has compiled a "

".) But when it comes to buying a product that's less toxic to the environment, knowing what your options are isn't easy."

"Typically, household products have simpler, easier-to-modify manufacturing processes than do PC products. "Figure out the flow of materials better, and then you can do a more environmentally friendly aluminum can," says Brad Allenby, professor of civil and environmental engineering and law at Arizona State University. "[A computer] is an extremely complex product even if you only look at the materials, and that makes it much, much more difficult.""

"To make green products, a computer manufacturer must find reliable sources of an eco-friendly substances. "A big problem with postconsumer plastics is to be able to obtain a consistent quantity of plastic," says Mark Small, Sony's vice president for environmental safety and health. Sony is developing products that incorporate biodegradable plastics, and Small says that the company's "

"Of course, tech consumers don't like to sacrifice performance for any reason. In a highly unscientific "

", 49 percent of 191 respondents said that they would buy green electronics equipment if doing so didn't entail to
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