ROHS recast: Electronics industry braces for further regulation

An expected recast of the ROHS (restriction of hazardous substances) environmental directive will likely carve away exclusions and possibly add new substances to the current list of six banned substances.

Rob Speigel, Contributing Editor; Edited by Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, news -- EDN, August 12, 2010

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The EU (European Union) is recasting its ROHS (restriction-of-hazardous-substances) environmental directive. By the end of this year or early next year, a ROHS recast will likely carve away exclusions and possibly add new substances to the current list of six banned substances.

The European Parliament has postponed its final vote on the new directive until October because the EU ’s Environment Committee is meeting with the Council of Ministers to collaborate on the expansion of ROHS. The ROHS recast will include medical and monitoring products, which have begun conversion to ROHS compliance.

At Arrow Electronics Inc, the components division has prepared for additional ROHS substances and fewer exclusions. “With more end equipment coming into scope, we find more of our customers needing to comply for the first time, and, therefore, they’re looking to Arrow for help in … [achieving] … compliance,” says Peter Kong, president of Arrow Electronics Global Components.

PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and BFRs (brominated flame retardants) will not be added to the original six banned substances as many industry observers had expected. But the electronics industry is still expecting these substances will eventually be restricted. Given that expectation, an industry coalition voluntarily stopped using PVC and BFRs, and it has asked the industry to follow suit in finding alternatives. The group includes Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Sony Ericsson, as well as the environmental groups the International ChemSec (Chemical Secretariat), Clean Production Action, and the European Environmental Bureau.

Many electronics companies have voluntarily moved to eliminate PVC and BFRs from their products. Some industry watchers are skeptical, however. Fern Abrams, director of government relations and environmental policy at the IPC,  suspects this was a business decision. "It’s easier to negotiate with than against ChemSec.” Abrams doubts that the companies will eliminate all BFRs and PVC substances. “The footnotes to their statements on their Web sites ... look like credit-card agreements,” she says.

“We’ve worked on the educational aspect of this issue,” says Alexandra McPherson, managing partner of Clean Production Action. “We’ve produced a technical report that shows the feasibility of the transition away from these substances. We did the report both for the policy members in Europe who will decide [what ROHS will include] and for the electronics supply chain so we could tell manufacturers what strategies companies have developed to overcome the challenges and barriers to removing PVC and BFR” (Reference 1).

“It will be an interesting awakening, too, for some companies,” says Ken Stanvick, senior vice president and co-founder of Design Chain Associates. “The idea of having technical documentation to defend your claim as ROHS-compliant will be difficult.”

In response to growing regulations, IPC has launched a campaign asking regulating bodies such as the European Parliament to make sure that they base their regulations on scientific facts. “When you look at some of the proposed amendments, you begin to abandon hope that it will be a scientific process,” says the IPC’s Abrams. “Some of the amendments are disturbing to anyone who cares about science.”

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References

Nimpuno, Nardano; Alexandra McPherson; and Tanvir Sadique, “Greening Consumer Electronics—moving away from bromine and chlorine,” ChemSec and Clean Production Action, September 2009. IPC's comments on the report can be found here.