This is a «  cri du cœur ! »

Voilà !

The news is that Apple will not include a charging cube with the next iPhone to save on shipping. The shipping part is not my main concern with Apple. They were always minimalist on the packaging. Amazon is the actual offender on that.

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Enough!

My “Cry of heart” is about the times they changed their “plugin” system, both from wire for the gadget to the wall and to the device itself.

I still have the first one issued with my first iPad, which still works, but there are no updates to the Apps, so it is practically useless. Except for some creative uses, such as the kitchen clock.

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Through the years, I accumulated such an array of cables, cords, chargers, and wall plugs for the USA and the EU systems.

Enough!

I know that I’ll have to buy even more extras for Apple devices. For example, my iPhone needs to be updated soon. Because I love to take pictures and the iPhone is always ready, the new 13 Pro is tempting. That, however, means I will have to update also on all other gadgets that go with it, such as a battery charger.

E-Waste?

Apple claims they aim at reducing the company’s environmental footprint. But it’s not that simple.

They claim that “Customers already have over 700 million Lightning headphones, and many customers have moved to a wireless experience,” but not if they keep changing the ports!

There are also over 2 billion Apple power adapters out there globally, and that’s not counting the billions of third-party adapters.

Many are also at my house, unfortunately.

Not Just Apple

I am not pointing my finger at Apple only. It is just that I started with Apple a long ago and kept with the same brand. It did not help reduce my cable accumulations thought!

E-waste, which includes batteries, appliances, phones, screens, and cables, might seem like junk at the end of its lifecycle to the people tossing it out. However, these loose ends contain traces of components such as iron, copper, and gold.

Much of this e-waste ends up in developing countries like Ghana and Thailand. It has spawned an industry of people scavenging for these items to make a living.

But the e-waste also contains toxic materials.

Something like 50 tons of mercury and 71 kilotons of plastics is found in globally undocumented flows of e-waste annually, released mainly into the environment.

The percentage of chargers coming from tablets, smartphones is 0.1 percent of the total e-waste increase.

Some Hope

For years, the European Parliament has been pushing for a standard charger for mobile phones. Recently, the European Commission announced a new plan to standardize charging ports for consumer electronics devices like smartphones and tablets being sold within the 27-nation bloc.

The new proposal appears to be more forceful and, once adopted, will make it mandatory to use USB-C as the standard for almost all mobile electronic devices.