A Brazilian public agency has asked Apple to prove real benefits to the environment for not including chargers in the box.
Apple has to respond within 24 hours of the notification or face a fine
The decision is exclusive to São Paulo State.
Now that Apple has started to ship its products without a power adapter or accessories in the box, certain countries such as Brazil and France have kept the company on their toes and forced them to ship certain accessories in the box.
As it was reported earlier in October by 9to5mac, Apple had to keep shipping EarPods in the box due to local laws in France. A similar issue will be faced by Apple in Brazil as the State of São Paulo has decided that Apple has to now ship iPhones with accessories in the box. The decision was confirmed by Procon-SP, which is the public consumer protection agency of São Paulo state.
As per reports, Procon-SP had asked for clarification from Apple on removing the power adapter from the iPhone box in October. It had asked the company to prove that removing them would not harm the consumers and to show the real benefits to the environment. Apple had responded with an argument stating that most of the users have a compatible charger and this move would reduce carbon emissions.
However, according to Procon-SP, they were not satisfied with the response from Apple, and a power adapter is considered as an essential component to use the product, and shipping a phone without a power adapter is against the Brazilian Consumer Defence code.
Apple must respond to this notification in 24 hours from when it was notified, or they will be fined in Brazil, as the agency states that Apple hasn’t provided substantial evidence that removing the chargers from the box would help the environment and not provided any guarantee that it would offer the same technical support to consumers who have bought third party chargers.
The decision is only applicable in the São Paulo state for the time being but Brazil’s National Consumer Secretary is considering forcing Apple to make this decision countrywide. It would be interesting to see if other countries follow the same path as many companies start following the Apple trend and stop including the adapters in their retail boxes.
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