[connor-brooks]

An average consumer probably gets a new phone every 1-2 years. That means 50-100g of junk plastic every year per person.

This seems very small compared to the amount of non-recyclable plastic I get every time I go to the supermarket (Fruit and veg in plastic wrapping).

Are USB cables very resource heavy to make? Is there something that makes them especially bad when compared to other waste?

[srg0]

The valuable part of the charger and the cable is not actually plastic. The point is that replaced chargers account for ~ 1_000_000 kg of e-waste per year.

Cable is 30% copper, 24% stainless steel, 16% other non-plastic materials. EPS is 13% copper and copper alloys, 7% aluminium, 6% steel, 37% other non-plastic components.

According to EU studies, 31% of the EPS and cables are incorrectly disposed.

https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...

They are not _especially_ bad compare to other waste, but it is the waste that be easily avoided.

[southerntofu]

Entirely agree with your point. However, i would point out that there's many other sources of waste that can be easily avoided:

- food waste and related food wrapping waste

- planned obsolescence (TVs, cars, washing machines, and just about every product out there)

- car-oriented architecture in the cities, where public transportation is an afterthought

- energy waste due to personal infrastructure/tooling (cooking/washing/heating infra, personal TV vs shared screening rooms, etc)

- war and social control: what's the environmental cost (transportation, manufacture of mechanical/chemical weapons) of repression (of, say an environmental protest like the anti-COP21 movement)? what about an outright war on a foreign nation?

These are just examples, but environmental concerns are rather "easy" to tackle given proper political will. The problem is people concerned with the coming ecological apocalypse are either ignored, silenced, bullied, mutilated or murdered by Nation States and multinationals.

[foepys]

The EU is also tackling all those points you mentioned. Many single-use plastics are already banned in the EU, the EU wants smartphone manufacturers to support their hardware for at least 5 years, many EU members give out incentives to improve house insulation, EV will become the norm in a few years and energy standard get stricter every few years.

It's not like the whole EU legislative body is now pushing with all their might to ban phone chargers, it's just a single working group of many.

[ReGenGen]

Perhaps EU should focus its energy and credibility on more important issues including ones you mentioned.

[zaarn]

The EU can tackle more than one issue at once. In fact, the EU has already put out mandates and regulations to reduce food packagin waste and a directive to combat planned obsolescence in TVs and Kitch Appliances.

[wasmitnetzen]

The EU very recently banned a lot of single-use plastics[1], so it's not like they're just targeting a random small problem here.

[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/topics/plastics/single-use-...

[qalmakka]

Well USB cables use some copper and some have gold-plated contacts. In any case, the EU has been complaining about cables for who knows how long, so I guess they have their own reasons, backed by data, to argue for their standardisation.

It surely doesn't make that much sense to let Apple do its own hypocrite thing where they spew out platitudes about the environment while clearly the only driving force behind their decisions is how they suit their financial targets.

[thefz]

Agree. given that USB-C has an insane bandwidth and can power even laptops, there is absolutely no need for different standards. Let's all agree on one and move on. Apple's stance is ridiculous and justifies only some more profit.

[benhurmarcel]

> An average consumer probably gets a new phone every 1-2 years

We don’t know the same “average” consumers.

[schleck8]

I don't know a single person who gets a new phone every year. And I'm happy about that.

[oaiey]

Oh they targeted plastic bags already. The food industry will get their blast, but their problem is harder to solve than chargers.

[squiggleblaz]

Is this something yet to come into law? I find it very hard to buy the vegetables I want at German supermarkets because they so often come wrapped in plastic sets of three. Even bananas have a substantial amount of sticky tape around them.

[qayxc]

Is it always plastic, though? Might be cellophane instead, which is not plastic and especially suited for packaging food.

[oaiey]

Plastic shopping bags are regulated. The supermarket packaging madness is ripe for regulation.

[ksec]

>An average consumer probably gets a new phone every 1-2 years.

Much closer to 4 years.

[wreath]

I don't know of anyone who gets a new phone every 1-2 years regardless of their income level. Is this really the case? Any data on it?

[cute_boi]

How about we solve both problems? Its not like we should solve these sequentially we can always solve problems in a parallel way?

[thefz]

Digging up rare earth and metals to use them a coupe of years and then throw them in a landfill is insane. I'm happy the EU has stepped in for this kind of regulation. As for the supermarket, vote with your wallet and buy the less plastic you can.

[cblconfederate]

I think the biggest benefit is that you won't need a charger if basically every train/plane/hotel/school etc can have charging bases for all phones. Just like we don't need to carry a power plug adapter wherever we go

[dbbk]

The average consumer absolutely does not get a new phone every single year.

[stjohnswarts]

I would say 3-4 years, at least here in the USA