Repsol YPF

Few devices have had such a big impact on our lives. Mobile telephones are a basic tool in many people’s daily routines, and charging their batteries is just another task in their everyday lives. However, count them up: how many unused chargers have you accumulated at home? More specifically, how many of them can be used to charge the battery of the same model or brand of mobile?

According to industry data, in 2008, around 1.2 billion new handsets were sold. Of them, between 50% and 80% replaced old mobile telephones. In total, this represented some 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers, explains the GSMA association, made up of the main international mobile operators.
 
LG, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telefónica, and Vodafone form part of this group which wants to put an end to this phenomenon. As such, they are proposing the implementation of a universal charger which can be used for any of their appliances. The technology selected, a micro-USB connection, is also that most widely used for chargers of other devices, such as digital cameras or audio players.

It is estimated that the charger will be “widely available in the market” in 2012. This will allow the industry to save time, money and energy on manufacturing and transporting chargers. According to the forecasts, if half of the chargers that are currently manufactured were produced, there would be a reduction of between 13.6 and 21.8 tonnes of C02 per year.

Improvements for the user

However, the new chargers not only affect industrial production and the resulting environmental improvement. Users also benefit: in addition to preventing the storage of unused chargers at home and promoting recycling, the universal model will resolve the usual problems of running out of battery when you are out. As such, forgetting your charger on a trip or in the office will no longer involve the classic, and sometimes unsuccessful search for a charger that is compatible with our mobile telephone, amongst colleagues, friends and relatives.

Furthermore, the new charger can have an impact on household energy consumption. According to the GSMA, the new chargers will be more efficient. The association of manufacturers and operators has advocated a classification of charger types, depending on their sustainability. Their commitment is that new chargers will have at least four of the five possible stars which make up the scale, which means that chargers will consume, when on stand-by, between 0.15 and 0.03 watts. Some of the current models consume 0.5 watts or more as soon as they are plugged in.

Although the new charger will reduce the phantom electricity consumption caused by leaving televisions and other household appliances on stand-by, it is worth remembering that the best option is still to unplug the mobile telephone charger when it is not in use. The hours on stand-by add up, the total of all electrical appliances that we have at home representing 12% of the electricity consumed by a Spanish family, according to an estimate produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF/Adena).

 
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