An innovative environmentally friendly mobile phone charger - dubbed the Eco Charger - has been launched for use with Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung handsets.

The Eco Charger, which has been devised by and is exclusively sold by The Carphone Warehouse, will be priced at £22.99 and aims to reduce the amount of energy that is often lost when a mobile phone is charged. According to Greenenergy.co.uk, 95 per cent of all energy used by mobile phone chargers is wasted because they are left plugged in when they are not in use.

Reportedly, eliminating this standby drain could save the UK up to 300 million kWh of electricity annually - an amount that's roughly equal to the energy consumption of 66,000 households. The Eco Charger works just like a standard mobile phone charger from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, and only needs to be plugged into a wall.

A button at the front of the charger can be pushed to turn the Eco on, and this glows blue when operational. However, in contrast to other mobile phone chargers, the Eco, shuts itself down as soon as a handset has been charged or when the phone is disconnected.

According to research commissioned by The Carphone Warehouse, this makes the Eco up to 90 per cent more efficient than any own brand mains charger. Other mobile players have launched temporary environmentally friendly chargers in the past.

In summer 2008, for example, O2 unveiled a cycle-based mobile battery charger at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. And at the Glastonbury Festival in June last year, Orange introduced its wind and solar power tent for mobile phone charging, as well as trialling its Dance Charge service, an arm strap that required its wearer to dance in order to generate enough power to charge a handset.