European Lawmakers have made a demand to develop a common charging port for all the smartphones available in the market. The practice of introducing a common port for all portable devices like smartphones, e-readers, tablets and a few more will reduce the generation of electronic waste on a high scale. This initiative also intends to make consumers’ life a bit easy.
In 2014, the Radio Equipment Directive of the European Union demanded the development of a common charging port but the initiative was turned down because of a shortage of co-legislatures. In consideration of the debate which was held on January 13, 2019, a voting session will be conducted to take any further decision on the development of a standard charger for all portable devices.
The European Union mentioned in one of its assessment ‘Standard charger for mobile phones: Inception Impact Assessment (2018)‘ that the electronic waste reduction policies have not been followed completely as according to the current scenario, Apple Lightning, USB 2.0 Micro B and USB Type C are majorly used by the consumers.
Apple responded to the report of the European Union a year ago by stating that a common charger for all smartphones is bad for the environment and will freeze innovation instead of encouraging it.
As mentioned by Apple, around a billion Apple devices are using lightning port. The introduction of a common charger will increase electronic waste on a very large scale and will hamper the convenience of the users too thus defeating the motive behind the directive.
As per the latest reports, Apple might kill the Lightning connector to adopt Type-C USB port in the latest iPhone 12 series as it has been already introduced in the iPad and MacBook.
