From what I remember the charcoal collects petrol vapour for feeding back in to prevent venting to air. An eco solution.
Your ecu may generate a fault code if it is removed. On my Rover V8 with Gems ecu I did get an evap error code once, possibly due to overfilling the petrol tank. Reset with my Maxiscan and not come up since, I dont fill up to the "last drop".
You could try disconnecting it to see what happens. A solenoid valve is part of the set up and you may be able to bypass signals for this?
