Back in the old days, smartphones included plenty of accessories out of the box, such as earbuds and charging bricks. Nowadays, you must buy those separately. Not too big a problem because you can purchase plenty of quality earbuds, but you would think manufacturers would at least include chargers to keep batteries topped up. Apparently, it’s for the good of the environment. At least, that’s what companies like Samsung claim.
The smart device retailer Uniqbe Limited broke down the environmental impact of smartphone companies forgoing charging bricks in their packages. According to the outlet, companies could reduce the amount of necessary packaging materials per smartphone box by 50%, meaning thinner boxes. These thinner boxes allow manufacturers to stuff more phones onto shipping pallets (70% more). The environmental effects don’t just impact the beginning of a smartphone’s lifecycle but also its end. Thinner boxes require less space in landfills, and since containers with new smartphones don’t include charging bricks, that means buyers won’t throw out their old ones whenever they purchase an upgraded phone. That’s tens of millions fewer metric tons of e-waste every year. Of course, money is also a factor.
Since companies can fit more smartphones per pallet, shipping costs per unit decrease. Moreover, the money it takes to manufacture all the items going into a box decreases since they obviously don’t add the cost of a charging brick per package. Sure, companies might be doing it to save a buck, but at least they have adopted practices that can help the environment.
The USB-C revolution rendered standard charging bricks somewhat superfluous
While phone manufacturers don’t include charging bricks in their packages anymore, companies don’t leave customers completely high and dry, as new phones still come with USB-C cables. Thanks to advances in USB technology, these cords are more universal than ever, so much so that you can supply your own wall outlet plug. Kind of.
Many companies are relying on USB-C cables for several reasons. Unlike prior iterations, they can slot into USB-C ports no matter which end is up, but more importantly, modern USB-C cables come with Power Delivery (PD) technology. This feature regulates voltages depending on the device, so you can potentially use a USB-C cable to charge virtually any gadget, be it a Nintendo Switch 2 or a smartphone.
In theory, if you buy one charger that uses a USB-C socket (or a charger with a USB-A socket and pair it with a PD-compliant cable that has one USB-C port), you can use it to maintain the battery levels of a veritable gaggle of devices, including various smartphones. However, in order for the charging brick to even last that long, you can’t cheap out and buy an inexpensive USB-C wall plug.
Some critics think the math doesn’t add up
If you take smartphone manufacturers’ claims at face value, then yes, shipping phones without charging bricks does indeed require fewer packing materials. However, some people say that it isn’t the same as using less packaging overall.
Critics such as Mrwhosetheboss on YouTube have been quick to point out that most smartphone users still need wall chargers. This means more materials end up getting used because the charging bricks use their own boxes — designers can’t consolidate packing materials into one container anymore. And that’s just if you buy the cable in your local Best Buy or Target. Shipping requires its own packing materials and associated costs, which end up being more than what companies save by subtracting the chargers from the boxes. And that’s to say nothing of the earbuds that were once included along with the charging block in larger boxes. If you want earbuds for your new phone, that will produce even more packing materials, shipping fees, and pollution — again, more than what manufacturers save by excluding them from the smartphone’s box.
At the end of the day, all the savings phone manufacturers tried to achieve by stripping out the charger and shipping phones inside smaller boxes is ultimately undone by the cube-square law: The more you increase the surface area of a container, the faster its volume increases, which gives designers more room for add-ins like chargers. Aiming for sustainability is all well and good, but always double-check your math beforehand.
