Every year they waited is another year for more lightning peripherals to get bought and become future e-waste. They should have done this far sooner, the moment it became "inevitable" (ie. when they started moving all their other devices to it.)

I doubt it was to "reduce the impact" so much as it was to push off as long as possible making a shift that inevitably is more of a con than a pro to people considering upgrading their phones.

What makes you think this reduces the impact?

I think it's more that Apple had the money to ignore the EU regulators for 11 years, rather than wanting to reduce the environmental impact of their chargers.

They were pissed that the EU doesn't bend to the will of corporations like the US does, so they dragged their feet for over a decade.

USB-C has only existed for 9 years. Apple has not been ignoring EU regulators for 11 years.

They were ignoring Micro-USB long before that.

Micro-usb really sucked though. I had several android phones that had broken micro-usb ports.

Lightning is actually a really nice connector design, despite the hate.