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04 Jun 2009
Mobile users in the UK who overcharge their phones waste almost £40m a year, and damage the environment and their batteries in the process.
A survey by comparison site MoneySupermarket.com found that most people leave devices to charge for well over eight hours, mainly overnight, when the majority are fully charged in around three hours.
The figures suggest that around 85,000 tonnes of CO2 could be saved if people disconnected their handset as soon as the charging was complete.
The younger generation are most at fault, with 49 per cent admitting to overcharging their mobiles by an average of 7.3 hours every time they plug it in.
Women were the most environmentally conscious, according to the survey, with just 11 per cent admitting to overcharging for an average of 6.8 hours, compared to 15 per cent of men who overcharge for an average of 8.5 hours.
"There have been some great advances in green technology from mobile manufacturers, but all that goes out the window when people are overcharging mobiles, wasting energy and driving up their utility bills," said James Parker, manager of mobiles at MoneySupermarket.com.
"Many people can't imagine going a day without their mobile, and have them almost permanently plugged in. The average phone takes only two to three hours to charge up, and overcharging can actually be damaging to the battery life."
Mobile manufacturers have made great strides in making devices increasingly eco-friendly. Nokia's phones provide messages reminding users to disconnect their chargers, and there are standardised energy efficient chargers under development, as well as a number of green mobile phones and recycling schemes.
Parker recommended that mobile owners should only charge their phone when the battery is completely dead, and for up to four hours only. Those who charge their phones overnight should invest in an electronic plug timer to switch off the charger after a few hours.
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Do you agree?
drop in the ocean
This is why even as crazy as it seems I use my solar charged deep-cycle marine battery to charge both my laptop and phone. Drop in the ocean, but its my drop. I'm a little skeptical of "over charging" as the electronics inside the charger will cut the charge current and simply maintain charge, not try to push charge. Infact letting your battery go completly dead (0% SOC) is alot worse than keeping it topped up, much more detrimental to the life cycle of the battery. Every week and a half before my last battery bar is gone I hook up my phone and let the sun do the work. Of course, I live in Arizona :)
Posted by: Dave 11 Jun 2009
The mobile is my servant, not the other way round.
Parker must be out of his tiny mind. Of course I don't wait for my mobile to go dead before I charge it: if I did that, I'd have a dead mobile until I got to the next place where I could plug it in! Likewise obviously I'm not going to keep getting up in the night to see if it's charged yet. If the battery and charger can't cope with being used the way it has to be used to be functional, then they answer is to fix them, not to complain that we expect our mobiles to serve us, not the other way round.
Posted by: Jane 08 Jun 2009
Overcharge Mobiles - IMPOSSIBLE!
When I plug in my mobile phone to charge, the battery indicator on the display starts flashing. Once all '3' battery bars are full the flashing stops - thus NO OVER CHARGING. Or did my manufacturer lie to me?
Posted by: Me Knowit All 06 Jun 2009
Our responsibility
Surely it is not the users of the phones but rather the manufacturers if this is really an issue, why is it so difficult to make the phone stop charging once it is done, I certainly don't sit there waiting for my phone to finish charging so I can immediately unplug it, how ridiculous, I should think most people leave their phones on overnight, maybe they should set an alarm for when it's finished so we can get up and unplug it?? see how stupid that sounds??
Posted by: Rob Medlock 06 Jun 2009