The resolution, which was drafted in January, is already a reality. With 582 votes in favor, 40 against and 37 abstentions, the new universal charger standard – and other similar electronic devices – is underway. The European Parliament has called on the European Commission to propose new legislation before the summer in order to adopt this measure. Parliament says in no uncertain terms that it wants the application of the universal charger law in the EU for all mobile devices to be established by July 2020 at the latest, “to reduce the amount of electronic waste and provide consumers with sustainable choices! “.
Benefits of a universal charger
Arguments in favor of the new legislation include:
– Reduction of electronic waste (the idea is to minimize the number of mobile chargers that should be in each home both for convenience and ecology, since according to the figures provided by the European Parliament, electronic waste amounts to about 50 million metric tons per year. year in the world)
– Easy and interoperable charging for end users.
The presence of a law that requires having a universal charger on European territory is not new: consumer organizations have been demanding it for many years, but obstacles have been encountered, especially by the American company Apple (which has your own proprietary Lightning cable for the charging port). In fact, Apple claims that the new EU common charger standard will “stifle innovation.”
Crucial points of the law
The EU makes clear the need to recycle older chargers and cables, because with the current law manufacturers are suggested to manufacture a universal charger, but it is not a requirement, so the picture remains the same: when a user You buy a new phone, you have to use the new charger, and the old phone ends up in a drawer. These old components need to be recycled so they don’t end up as electronic waste.
According to the EU, device buyers should not have to pay for new chargers every time they change their smartphone model, so there would be some way to separate the purchase of the mobile phone from the purchase of a charger and not have to pay an extra if all we want is to change the phone model. This strategy, according to MEPs, should be carried out in parallel to that of the common charger “without entailing higher prices”.
What would the universal charger be like?
The European Parliament calls for the universal charging cable to work regardless of the device, be it a smartphone, tablet or computer. Thus, this new law forces mobile manufacturers to use the new USB-C charging standard and it incorporates many of the advantages (connection reversibility, data transmission speeds and charging speeds) used to justify the existence of proprietary charging connectors, such as micro-USB. Thus, with the new law, Android OEMs, for example, whose standards used allow them to keep prices low, will have to have the USB-C standard regardless of the price of the device.
