A quick and very grateful thumbs up to the mobile phone industry, which has come to a voluntary agreement to introduce a universal mobile phone charger for all models – across all brands – from 2010 onwards. (N.B. it should be noted that this was after a good deal of prodding from the EU legislative bodies).
That means that from next year onwards we’ll massively reduce electronic waste from such products and save customers a good deal of both money (replacing lost chargers isn’t that cheap) and space (drawers full of old chargers can now house something else…)
Personally i think most of us would agree that this move is long, long overdue – but nonethelss it’s as welcome now as it would’ve been a couple of years ago. In addition it’s another fairly positive bit of work (like the standardisation of roaming charges) from the EU on behalf of consumers and the environment. Though since we got the Blu-Ray vs HD DVD standardisation sorted in under a couple of years, we really should have got this done a bit sooner than the decade plus that it’s taken, but nevermind – better late than never…
Dejan Levi