Critical Links

There is currently a batteries directive in the European Union (EU), and there has been since March 1991. However, in many respects, the directive has failed. For example, in 2002 more than 45% of the batteries sold in the EU were still going to landfills or for incineration. A new focus was required and the New Batteries Directive, due to come into force on September 26, looks to provide this and will replace the original directive. 

Efficient recycling and comprehensive safety data and labelling are the aims of Directive 2006/66/EC and it applies to all batteries, whether re-chargeable or non re-chargeable. Security equipment or equipment that is intended for use in space, does not fall within its scope.

The new directive emphasizes the current restriction on mercury, as well as now effe...Read More

Recently, there have been signs of increased ROHS enforcement activity across the European Union.

In particular, and maybe not surprising, the Scandinavian ROHS authorities have been busy. Their investigations included visits to manufacturers, importers, and retailers across Denmark, Sweden, and Finland and resulted in 22 cases of non-compliance, one of which led to a prosecution.

Three cases of non-compliance were in Sweden from 60 products analyzed, six in Denmark from 29, and 13 in Finland from 63 investigated. The main causes for non-compliance included lead in plastic and lead in solder.

The prosecution involved a Swedish importer bringing in non-branded glue guns from China that contained lead in the plug casing above permitted concentration values. Authorities focused on short lifecycle products and small household appliances, as well as acting on &l...Read More

Thought I would touch on the subject of lead-free soldering again as you, our Critical Links readers, always provide me with an interesting response. Whether we like it or not, and even allowing for the unsatisfactory way that it arrived and the lack of life-cycle assessment before lead was banned from solder, it seems that lead-free soldering is here to stay.

A few days ago, a UK customer wrote to me detailing their lead-free experience.

“A couple of years or so before the deadline for going lead free, we began experimenting with the use of lead-free solder.  At that time, the biggest problem going entirely lead free was the lack of information available. So one had to assume that lead-free resistors and capacitors were not available.

The initial finding was that lead-free soldering (all hand soldering in our case) was mo...Read More

The REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals) regulations and the ROHS (restriction of certain hazardous substances) directive approach the matter of substance restrictions in a different way.

ROHS restricts -- effectively bans -- six substances in electrical and electronic equipment that fall within the scope of eight broad categories of product (both the number of substances and product categories are likely to increase in the near future). There are also numerous exemptions. REACH, however, affects all chemicals, including those used to make the equipment (alloys, solvents, paint, etc.) and chemicals present in finished products of all types. There are very few exclusions and exemptions.

ROHS restrictions are based on hazards -- if a substance is hazardous and there are alternatives, then it could be banned. On the other hand, ...Read More

Accurate figures are difficult to obtain, but it has been estimated that fires kill around 10,000 people a year globally, in which the cause is attributed to faulty electrical wiring in buildings and in electrical equipment. Flame retardants have been used very effectively in a wide variety of electrical equipment to prevent fires, reduce their seriousness and also to delay onset to allow people more time to evacuate. In fact, research has shown that when flame retardants are used as additives to plastics, the amount of time to escape is increased by 15 times. Since they were introduced, thousands of lives have been saved, and so there is no doubt about their value.

Many types of plastics burn very easily. It has been estimated that the plastics in a typical TV set are equivalent to 1.5 gallons of gas, not something consumers want in their living rooms!  However, onl...Read More

The European Commission granted an exemption for Decabromodiphenyl ether (DecaBDE) in October 2005, mainly as a result of a comprehensive risk assessment that showed that this flame retardant did not pose a risk to human health or to the environment (although more research was required).

As a consequence, Denmark and the European Parliament challenged this decision at the European Court of Justice and on April 1, 2008, the court ruled that the Commission had not followed the correct procedure as laid down by Article 5.1b of ROHS, and so the exemption would be deleted. The Court allowed three months to allow time either for manufacturers to change their products or for the Commission to correct their mistake. Neither is long enough, and so the result will be that this exemption ends on June 30, 2008. Few manufacturers will be able to meet this deadline and so many products ...Read More

The price pressures we see in today’s market are not driven by the manufacturing segment. Lower costs are being driven by a grey market that has failed to add value in any other way (see “Identity crisis in the grey market”). 

It could be predicted that an unregulated market with demands for lower prices would result in counterfeit supply. As the counterfeit industry grows, so do the risks, and as the risks grow, so do the chances of being affected by counterfeit product. It’s this swing in the balance that might finally prevent companies from sustaining profitability and encounter losses. However, as the balance remains in the favor of profit, we have a problem to solve.

Having government and commercial interests join in a concerted effort to insure that rats don’t get throu...Read More

Please welcome Richard Tapping of Semicentral.com to EDN’s Critical Links blog.

I met Richard (pictured below) about six months ago after writing “Fighting back against the grey market,” a blog post for Critical Link’s sister electronics supply chain blog Supply Chain Reaction. Upon reading it, Richard sent me a detailed e-mail about his business model (a fully functional e-commerce platform that is created and managed by its registered sellers, stay tuned for more on that later) and his views on the grey market.

Richard, who spent the majority of his career at...Read More

Judging from the comments posted to my previous blog “ROHS – more harm than good?” the directive clearly is still an emotional subject. There were many interesting and certainly valid points made, and I thank you for taking the time to reply. 

Reliability was a favourite subject, although in reality, lead-free technology is now sufficiently advanced to have no effect on most (but not all) products. The increased energy costs and reduced tip life, as well as the lack of long-term reliability data are clearly concerns, but I doubt that we will now see a change of heart on this issue. 

Another common theme was, rightly so, the impact on the environment, not least because the affect of alternatives to the six ROHS substances was not considered when ROHS was ado...Read More

This is a question I’ve been asked many times about the ROHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive.

In fact, this very subject can cause considerable emotion, and politics often raises its head when industry challenges the basis of ROHS.

The ROHS directive was originally bolted on to the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive. The idea was to eliminate hazardous substances from equipment which, in turn, would make recycling easier at end-of-life. This has been partially the case as recovering lead from WEEE is quite easy, although cadmium and mercury have proved more of a problem.

Initially, most of industry in Europe ignored ROHS thinking that it would never be accepted, but now it is probably too late to change it significantly, although many iterations are likely.

Interestingly, the current review of the scope o...Read More

Just when the US Design Engineer was getting used to the idea of ROHS with its mix of broad product categories, restricted substances and exemptions, the European Commission (EC) decides it’s time for change.

The EC has commissioned a comprehensive review of the scope. Here we look into our crystal ball and consider the potential outcome.

It is certain that the review will lead to more products falling within scope. The two missing categories from the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive, categories 8 and 9 (medical and monitoring & control instruments) have been reviewed by UK consultants ERA Technology, and they have recommended the inclusion of both, although implementation is not expected before 2012.

Some of the definitions will also be clarified, such as fixed installations (CCTV, alarms, heaters, air-conditioning etc)...Read More

EDN’s Critical Links blog returns this week with a new set of contributors from the electronics supply chain.

First at bat is Gary Nevison, Newark's spokesperson and customer interface on legislation that affects the electronics industry, such as the ROHS (all variations around the world, including China ROHS), REACH, EuP, and WEEE directives.

At Newark's sister company, Farnell, Gary is based in the UK, but he is a truely global executive. As part of his work for the distributor and its Americas arm, Nevison has spoken extensively at legislation and environmental seminars throughout Europe, North America, and Australia. He also writes a regular, interactive column in...Read More

The European Union’s RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive has now been in effect for one year. One of the questions I am frequently asked is “has anyone been reprimanded or even prosecuted yet”?

The answer is yes and no.

In talking to my colleagues in the U.K., this is what I have learned: Most EU countries have an enforcement body, but are only now just beginning to carry out market surveillance. The U.K.’s National Weights & Measures Laboratory (NWML), however, has been policing compliance since the law took effect. About 95 percent of finished products that they have seen are not 100 percent RoHS compliant. Most of these products have just a few components that do not comply, and the use of tin/lead solder is a common cause of non-compliance.

The NWML has ta...Read More

Guess which country is graduating one million engineers each year? Big hint: It’s the same country whose market demand for components was $95 billion in 2006. The very same country that represents 50 percent of the total electronics spending in the world.

Yep, it’s China. For a long time the talk in the industry has been about the shift of production to China. Now, the reality is that the biggest consumer of electronics in the world is poised to design them, too.

I spoke about this new design revolution a few weeks ago as part of a “Distribution in China” panel discussion at EDS (Electronics Distribution Show) in Las Vegas. Newark’s parent company, Premier Farnell, has recently launched Premier Electronics in China to serve its rapidly growing design engineer mar...Read More

In my last blog I talked about my best customer service experience. Today, I’m going to talk about the other end of the spectrum. Recently I purchased an all-in-one printer for personal use and had a problem with it right out of the box. When it escalated, I sent a letter to the board of directors at the manufacturer, because that was the only contact I could find beyond a customer service call center.