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14/05/2009
Govt Calls For Universal Phone Charger
A Fianna Fail MEP has called for the harmonisation of battery chargers for mobile phones.
Brian Crowley, who is also the President of the UEN group in the European Parliament said he believes a universal charger solution would hugely benefit consumers as well as the environment.
According to Mr Crowley, on a Europe wide basis there are hundreds of millions of obsolete battery chargers and adapters causing unknown damage to the environment. The replacement of chargers is an unnecessarily expensive and a costly burden for consumers.
The MEP said: "The use of mobile phones in Ireland has reached 100% with more than 7% of consumers having more than one active mobile phone. There are more than 3.4 million mobile phones in Ireland.
"The European Commission wants to introduce the harmonisation of battery chargers for mobile phones. This would involve only one charger to use for any type of mobile phone."
GSMA, the world wide congress for mobile telecommunications, along with 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers announced in February they were committed to implementing a universal charger for new mobile phones.
The congress claims a standardized charger would eliminate up to 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers world wide.
The group has set a target of 2012 for a universal charging solution and has proposed the use of Micro-USB as the common universal charging interface.
Mr Crowley added: "There needs to be a formal commitment coming from manufacturers to achieve this.
"If this is achieved we could then strive for the same to be applied to devices like camera's and MP3 players," he said.
(DW/BMcC)
Brian Crowley, who is also the President of the UEN group in the European Parliament said he believes a universal charger solution would hugely benefit consumers as well as the environment.
According to Mr Crowley, on a Europe wide basis there are hundreds of millions of obsolete battery chargers and adapters causing unknown damage to the environment. The replacement of chargers is an unnecessarily expensive and a costly burden for consumers.
The MEP said: "The use of mobile phones in Ireland has reached 100% with more than 7% of consumers having more than one active mobile phone. There are more than 3.4 million mobile phones in Ireland.
"The European Commission wants to introduce the harmonisation of battery chargers for mobile phones. This would involve only one charger to use for any type of mobile phone."
GSMA, the world wide congress for mobile telecommunications, along with 17 leading mobile operators and manufacturers announced in February they were committed to implementing a universal charger for new mobile phones.
The congress claims a standardized charger would eliminate up to 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers world wide.
The group has set a target of 2012 for a universal charging solution and has proposed the use of Micro-USB as the common universal charging interface.
Mr Crowley added: "There needs to be a formal commitment coming from manufacturers to achieve this.
"If this is achieved we could then strive for the same to be applied to devices like camera's and MP3 players," he said.
(DW/BMcC)
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