Electronics makers are lucky that WALL-E units are cleaning Africa's coasts of discarded products.

African children are being exposed to hazardous chemicals in the discarded electronics products of first world countries, Greenpeace warned.

Luckily, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth) units are on the job. But if those cute little rascals ever stop working, Africans could find themselves in danger.

takepart by buying a WALL-E unit from Disney and shipping it to Africa. Or takepart by educating yourself on which electronics makers are the greenest.

80s rock icon Bryan Adams was seen wearing a “Release Junichi and Toru” t-shirt last June on a UK talk show in support of Greenpeace activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, who were jailed in Japan for exposing an illegal whale meat smuggling operation. The two were released on July 15th after 252,530 people had sent letters to the Japanese government demanding they be let out of jail. The video of Bryan Adams on the talk show is below, followed by a video by Greenpeace on the “Tokyo Two.”

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In a civic event meant to symbolize Mexico’s attempt to undo some of the environmental damage it has done through excessive pollution, Mexicans went out this past Saturday and planted over eight million trees all over the country.

During an event celebrating the plantings, President Felipe Calderon stated, “We are repairing just a little of the enormous damage that we are doing” to the environment.” Though Greenpeace has been quoted as calling the day nothing more than a publicity stunt, the Mexican government is trying to use the event as an awareness-raising campaign for its citizens.

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Okay, we know you’re dying for the next-generation iPhone in June. See the current iRumors here, but for those of us who can’t hand-me-down the phone to our distant and far less technologically advanced relatives, here’s the TakePart guide to recycling that first iPhone – and feeling good about it – while you get in line outside the Apple/AT&T stores for “Version 2.0″!:

1. Greenpeace-Enforced Free Recycling – sure, you’d like to get a credit towards your next-generation iPhone, but Greenpeace has been hassling Apple since early iPod days to go green with the toxic substances found in its products. Click here to ask Steve Jobs for a Greener Apple. Great iPhone dissection video here.

Apple has been offering free recycling of its products through its stores for quite some time now, launched way back in 2006. However, the recycling was only free if you bought yourself a new gadget to replace the recycled one. Now, iPods and iPhones can be recycled for free without having to buy a new one, but if you want to recycle your old computer (regardless of its brand), you’ll still need to upgrade or pay.

No surprise, Apple has gone greener – announced on February 24, 2008. Here’s the official Apple recycle link (funny, no iPhones showing…); and one site that raised additional noise was GreenMyApple. Check out its historical archive.

2. How about AT&T? – A little on the corporate side, but AT&T is doing some needed CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) to help the effort. Now if only they’d do a promotion around buying our first-gen phone and giving us some credit for the next-gen purchase. Odds are they will, but it will be minor as iPhone 2.0 demand will be high p.m.n.m.w. (pretty much no matter what).

3. eBay’s Rethink Program – What better way to encourage recycled trade than auctioning your semi-old iPhone on eBay. In eBay’s words: “The Rethink Initiative brings together industry, government and environmental organizations to offer a fresh perspective and new answers to the challenge of e-waste.” Craigslist is another opportunity for a “meet me at a nearby Starbucks and we’ll trade up” approach. There are 635 ‘adoptable’ iPhones for sale on Craigslist in Los Angeles, alone.

Also check out: eBay’s Giving Works – Better yet, use Giving Works to support a worthy cause via your iPhone donation. Powered by MissionFish, this site has raised nearly $80 Million for 13,278 non-profits since 2003. Good stuff, and makes you sleep better at night (unless you keep your phone under your pillow…). Other worthy non-profits include Recycle Wireless Phones.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

“The First Time I Every Saw Your Face” May Be the First Time You Hear About Ewan MacColl

California’s Gay Marriage Ban Overturned & 5 Ways To Take Action

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Nicole Hughes:

“Bottlemania” Book Takes Bottled Water Industry To Task

Arnold Tells Automakers To “Stop Whining” About Tougher California Emissions Standards

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Andy Kondrat:

Department of Energy Forecasts Large Increase In Wind Power Usage

Edward Norton & Gavin Newsom Speak To Congress About Environmental Building Practices

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Jon Popham:

Spencer Tunick Strips Hundreds Naked

Lichtenstein Sculptures At Fairchild Garden In Miami

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Giulia Rozzi:

Does Being Ethical Pay?

Is the Anti-Female Genial Mutilation Campaign Offensive?

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Gina Telaroli:

A Global Look At Media On Pangea Day

Everything Cinema: Brody Takes On the Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard

Spencer Tunick stripped hundreds of willing participants naked over the weekend for a new photography installation shot in Austria. The American photographer, who has taken nude to a whole new level, snapped photos of 1,800 disrobed subjects in an Austrian soccer stadium that will play host to this year’s 2008 Euro Cup Finals. Tunick arranged the subjects throughout areas of the stands, having been prohibited from using the grass playing field due to official’s concerns about wear and tear. According to the photographer’s website:

“This very special ephemeral installation that we are inviting you to be part of is devised to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures,”

It is indeed one of this writer’s great regrets to have not taken an invitation to appear in Tunick’s 1997 installation in Times Square, NYC seen above. At the time the photographer’s works were much more guerilla-style affairs, which involved the invitees showing up in robes at 5AM at the selected location, and quickly stripping and running out into the street for the shots like a (literal) flash mob. Since then both Tunick’s fame and the scale of his work has grown immensely, to the point where his 2007 Mexico City - Zocalo, MUCA/UNAM Campus installations (shown below) included upwards of 18,000 subjects.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out our most popular articles of the week on a variety of subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan Surfaces 120 Years Later

Hallelujah For American Idol, Jeff Buckley and Leonard Cohen

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Nicole:

Google Gives Free Voicemail to San Francisco Homeless

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Turnes 80

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Giulia:

Patrick Swayze’s Cancer Battle

Koby Bryant’s PSA for ASR

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Gina:

Reese’s Empowering Bracelet

“Chop Shop” - Dreams In a Place of Despair

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Kerry:

Bamboo Laptop: Will Apple Be Green with Envy?

The Explosive Truth About Twinkies

Steve Jobs recently proclaimed a new commitment to greener product design, but a Taiwan-based company called Asus has topped Apple’s new Air laptop in the sustainble sweepstakes with its Eco Book. Yeah, it’s cool that the Air is clad in recyclable aluminum, but the Eco Book’s laminated with strips of sustainably harvested bamboo, according to the Guardian.

Asus designed the Eco Book in response to the growing demand for alternatives to plastics. Jellent Sun, a senior director at Asus, told the Guardian “Bamboo is the most sustainable raw material there is.” The Eco Book was unveiled yesterday at the computer fair CeBIT, in Hanover, Germany, but it won’t go into production till June.

Other companies are introducing their own “ecolutions” at CeBIT, such as Fujitsu Siemens’ O-Watt monitor, which uses no electricity when in standby mode. This is exactly the kind of innovation we need to solve the “vampire energy“ problem I blogged about yesterday.

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Our second installation of the TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is here give you the very best of Katie, Nicole, Giulia, Gina and Kerry! More blogs means more to love this Valentine’s Day week, and more social action means a healthier and happier world for everyone. Check out our most popular posts of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

5 Ways to Take Action and Get Action On Valentine’s Day

Top 10 Guilt-Free Valentine’s Day Jewelry Gifts: Show Your Valentine You Have a Heart

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Nicole:

Kiva: Microlending to Change Lives

Top 10 New Releases to Inspire Social Change

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Giulia:

Alicia Keys Uses Grammys to Help Keep a Child Alive

V-Day Celebrates Its 10 Year Anniversary!

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Gina:

Top 10 Movie Characters That Make A Difference

Art As Politics In “The Silence Before Bach”

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Kerry:

Tap Project Gets Donations Flowing For Safe Global Water

Levon Helms’ “Dirt Farmer” Wins Grammy Gold

This Valentine’s Day, if you’re hoping to find that special someone who will “take actions” with you to make the world, and your love life, a better happier place, I have just the list for you. So here are the 5 best free on-line dating sites for finding that special someone to drink organic free trade hot cocoa with, to make a hemp necklace for, and to send action alerts to. Because, you know what they say: the personals is political.

1. Act For Love is a personals site where you can find the activist– and the cause– of your dreams. After you’re done searching through profiles, you can search through the action center where you will find things like “Less Pink, More Research” take action link, which urges Congress to pass the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act. Their motto, which I say after coming up with the title for this post, is “Take Action. Get Action.”

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