Companies are starting to get more into environmental packaging. The latest is Dell. Dell gets just a little greener by adding bamboo in its product packaging portfolio. And they are the first in the PC industry to do it.

It applies to all Dell Inspiron Mini 10 and Mini 10v netbooks shipped from today onward. Bamboo is used as product cushions cradling the Mini within an outer box that is made from 25% post-consumer materials. Starting early next year, Dell hopes to expand their use of bamboo packaging to a wider range of it’s products.

SimpleTech wants to please tree-huggers everywhere while stealing Panda food for their latest, the [re]Drive, a 500GB external hard drive that’s ensconced in recyclable aluminum, and “renewable, naturally grown bamboo.” Poor pandas. What will they eat if we keep using their food in tech?

Interestingly the aluminum and bamboo enclosure acts like a heat sink, so much so that there’s no need for an internal fan, which saves power. But somewhere, a panda cries out in hunger.

Salk Sound’s latest speakers, look like they belong in some weird sci-fi flick. They are definitely different. They are dubbed the HT 4 to outdo the current HT 3 line. These babies weigh 155 lbs and stand about 42″ high. Supposedly they can deliver “a very accurate recreation of what you would hear in a concert hall or other live venue.”

They are made of trans-laminated bamboo, but there is a cheaper Medium Density Fiberboard version in the works too.

Two creatures love bamboo a whole lot. Pandas and eco-loving hippies. I make fun, but both creatures are smart, because bamboo grows super fast so chopping it down to be used in electronic devices, or to eat, is a good idea. Micro Innovations is the latest company to feature accessories made with a bamboo shell.

Those accessories include speakers, a card reader, a webcam, USB hub, keyboard and a mouse. Hopefully the guts of these devices are a little greener as well, not just the casing. These should be available in an electronics store near you around April or May.

If you’re looking for an environmentally-friendly laptop that will match your wood floors, the ASUS U6V-B1-Bamboo laptop is for you. It’s actually fairly nice looking and this 12.1-inch ultraportable laptop is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. It features a Moso bamboo cover and a palm rest that is “artisan grade,” ooo la la.

Even the touch pad has bamboo fiber patterns on it, making it feel as though you’re scrolling and pointing on a real bamboo surface. Specs include a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 processor, a 320GB hard drive, a NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256MB graphics card and more. The display is LED backlit and features a 1280 x 800 resolution. An optical drive is included as well as Windows Vista Business. Go ahead and pre-order it on Amazon now for $1,999.

Many gadget makers are looking for unique ways to stand out while providing eco-friendly alternatives to plastic gadgets. As far as USB drives go, this one manages to be both environmentally friendly and able to stand out from the crowd. As a bonus it will hold your data.

The NAND based flash drive will be available in 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB sizes. The high speed USB 2.0 memory stick resides inside a hardened bamboo shell that can last forever. It comes with a bamboo slide box, so you’ll always know where it’s at. Plus it looks really stylish sitting on your desk.

Asus ditched their plans for all-bamboo laptops, much to the delight of bamboo chewing Pandas everywhere. Instead they’ve revealed the U6, which is only bamboo trimmed for that we’re still green statement. I have to say, the look works.

If laptops evolved from the old wood-grain atari console, this is what they would look like. You’ll pay for all that elegance, as it will cost you around $2000. Apparently, plans for the all-bamboo Asus EcoBook were scrapped when heat management became an issue. Good thing too, because otherwise we wouldn’t have this looker.

This strange bamboo-encased eco-PC concept was unveiled at Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference today. They’re saying it’s Dell’s smallest-ever computer. For comparison, it’s 81 percent smaller than a standard desktop and more importantly it uses 70 percent less power.

No info yet on what’s inside or an official name for that matter, but according to Dell the machine is scheduled to be released later this year, with a price between $500 and $700. I suppose if anyone can make people buy bamboo computers, it’s dell. Maybe they can bring the Dell dude back and instead of saying, “Dude I’m getting a Dell”, maybe he can say, “Dude, I’m getting wood”.

These days everyone is going green. It’s not just for peace loving hippies anymore. That’s why Asus has their eye on a greener line of products. The idea is to make computers and notebooks out of environmentally friendly materials like bamboo. It makes sense, and not just from a Panda luring standpoint. Bamboo is not only environmentally friendly, but also very tough.

Asus products that will be made with bamboo include notebooks, LCDs and Mini PCs. They claim that they’ve figured out a special manufacturing process to make it even more durable. While the idea will not singlehandedly save Mother Earth, it will help a tad, while giving everything a nice retro look. My one concern is that when they harvest all the bamboo, the Pandas will be coming for our laptops.