The main association of mobile phone manufacturers, GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) has recently announced a plan to standardize all phone chargers with a microUSB connector.

What does that mean? It means that there will no longer be a myriad number of charging cords, with all those tips that are not compatible with each individual cellular phone manufacturer.

One of the motivations of this new agreement is to stop the environmental damage caused by the waste of old cellular phone chargers. Did you know that there is 51,000 tons of cell phone chargers being discarded a year? A standardized charger could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from this waste by 13.6 to 21.8 million tons.

Another economical and environmental improvement by the standardized charger is that they are projected to consume up to fifty percent less power.

The plan is to implement this sweeping change to the mobile phone industry by the year 2012. Isn’t when the world is coming to an end, according to some Mayan calendar? At least according to some new film by Roland Emmerich, the guy who gave us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow.

So, by the time we have standardized phone chargers, it may be too late. Here is a list of those cellular phone companies who will be part of the deal: AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom Austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and 3 Group.

Source 1 and Source 2