We’ve written in the past about the GSMA announcement to create a universal charger by 2012.

It looks like Europe decided to get a head start.

On Monday, it was announced by the European Commission that several major mobile phone manufacturers, including Apple, Nokia and Sony Ericsson have signed up for a European Union wide harmonization of phone chargers by 2010.


According to Reuters, the agreement would involve the creation of a European norm. All newly manufactured phones would use a standard micro-USB socket to ensure compatibility.

“People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone,” said EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, estimating that unwanted phone accessories accounted for thousands of tons of waste in Europe each year.

Of course the chargers would only be usable for Smart phones, but data enabled phones are expected to account for almost half of all new mobile handset purchases in 2010.

Hopefully, as people discard their old handsets, all data-enabled phones in Europe will be using standardized chargers within three to four years, said the Commission.

This announcement is great news for a number of reasons. Consumers won’t have to buy a new charger for every phone they have and manufacturers won’t have to pay for the costs to create them.

It’s also great news for the environment. Less plastic, copper and nickel needed to create every charger, and fewer chargers will go to the dump.

2012 can’t come soon enough!