Apple has reportedly made more than $6.5 billion USD in profit by not including chargers and earphones with its iPhone sales.
Claiming its decision was to cut waste down for the environment, Apple saved about $35 USD with each iPhone sale.
Since the decision, Apple customers have been forced to buy chargers and earphones for around $20 each.
By removing the products, the company could also make its boxes smaller and therefore include more in each shipment – reducing its yearly carbon emissions by 2 million metric tons.
The company’s head of environment Lisa Jackson said “we know customers have been accumulating adapters and that producing millions of unneeded adapters consumes resources and adds to our carbon footprint”.
A spokesman for the company said Apple was “constantly innovating to conserve resources and protect the planet we all share”.
“Already carbon neutral for our own operations, we’ve set an ambitious goal to become carbon neutral for our entire supply chain and product usage for 2030 – so every apple device sold will have net zero carbon impact,” he said.
Customers have since taken to Twitter to accuse the company of being driven by profit rather than the environment.
“So Apple made 6.5 billion dollars by not including accessories… the irony is that each additional accessory you purchase now comes with its own packaging,” they said.
