One Charger to rule them all  

Good Magazine has an article on efforts to reduce electronic waste by adopting a common standard for all mobile phone rechargers - One Charger for All the Universe’s Phones.

Back in February we heard that the cell phone companies were thinking about making every phone compatible with a single kind of charger. Well, good news: The International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations group that oversees this sort of thing, just announced specs for the Universal Charging Solution—a single phone charger for the entire (known) universe.

From the ITU:

Every mobile phone user will benefit from the new Universal Charging Solution (UCS), which enables the same charger to be used for all future handsets, regardless of make and model. In addition to dramatically cutting the number of chargers produced, shipped and subsequently discarded as new models become available, the new standard will mean users worldwide will be able to charge their mobiles anywhere from any available charger, while also reducing the energy consumed while charging.

The new UCS standard was based on input from the GSMA, which predicts a 50 per cent reduction in standby energy consumption, elimination of 51,000 tonnes of redundant chargers, and a subsequent reduction of 13.6 million tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Can you imagine? 50,100 tons of redundant chargers? There are relatively few corporate “green” initiatives that have the potential to really reduce the amount of plastic crap we produce and throw away. This is one.