Today, smartphones come in all shapes and sizes and to find the right charger for the one we own can become a maddening scramble. But all this may come to an end as European politicians backed up a regulation to force smartphone manufacturers to use for their devices just one type of charger.

Universal smartphone charger

This year, the MEPs have voted with an overwhelming majority, the regulation that will make the smartphone chargers universal and it will be enforced from 2017. This regulation was drawn in order to help the consumer and, in the same time, to cut down the amount of electronic waste, which is reaching quite very high limits. According to MEP Barbara Weiler, this regulation will serve both consumers and the environment, because it will put an end to the charger clutter and to the 51,000 tonnes of electronic waste that is registered annually. Right now, the regulation is still just a draft law and has to be approved by the council of ministers of Europe, but since the body already has the informal backing, it will most probably receive the final approvals. So, until 201, European states will have to integrate the regulation in their national laws and the smartphone producers will receive 12 months to switch to the new charger design. The discussions with the manufacturers regarding this regulation began in 2009 and they have favoured the microUSB connector to be integrated in the new chargers design, which is a format already used by many mobile and other devices. The only producer that has yet to respond is Apple, which is one of the few manufacturers that produce gadgets with proprietary power ports. However, Apple was one of the first signatories of the agreement that Europe reached with manufacturers regarding the universal chargers. Check out this docking charger: