You might think that CES is all about the glitter and glam of gadgets. Factors like thinness, size, brightness of the screen are all important to the mass of reporters that attend the Consumer Electronics Show ever year. But one group is looking past all that. Greenpeace looks at what companies are doing and how they are introducing products free of hazardous substances. Something many of us that love gadgets don’t think about, but probably should.

Greenpeace’s Guide from the CES show had Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia leading the way with HP following the list.

Hewlett-Packard was targeted last year and this year has come back with the HP Compaq 8000f Elite Ultra Slim Desktop PC, earning Greenpeace’s “Best in Show” award.

When there is a best, there’s always a worst. The winner of the worst award this year is Samsung. They still use toxic chemicals in its products. The only Samsung device without them were the mobile phones. Samsung has set January 2011 as the deadline for eliminating them in netbooks and no timeline for removing them from tvs.

“Companies need to support legislative bans to ensure a consistent phase out of PVC and BFRs across all electronic products,” said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. “Sony Ericsson and Apple are already calling on EU institutions to support such a ban. Other big players, such as HP and Dell – who have so far been silent – and Acer, need to ensure the ban is passed in the European Union parliament.”

Read more about Greenpeace at CES 2010 here.