Vote nears on amended ROHS directive

The European Parliament’s environment committee met in Brussels on June 2 and agreed to put three substances that were facing an immediate ROHS (restriction of hazardous substances) restriction on a list of priority chemicals that will be reviewed later, with a ban still a possibility.

Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants and PVC will be looked at later along with arsenic compounds and all chemicals (currently 38 of them), featured on the REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemical)  Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern for authorization. Green Groups have been lobbying for the three substances to be banned with support from some consumer electronics manufacturers, whereas most manufacturers are opposed to any such restrictions.

Members of European Parliament called for a ban on nanosilver and carbon nanotubes, and suggested that other electrical and electronic material containing nanomaterials should be labelled, and that manufacturers should be obliged to provide appropriate safety data. Nanomaterials are simply materials with very small particles and are widely used in many products including sunscreen, cosmetics and paints. Nanosilver is a biocide and has been used in washing machines, air conditioning and vacuum cleaners.

Carbon nanotubes show huge potential for novel technologies, but so far there are very few applications. Super capacitors and some types of electric motors seem to be the only uses.

At the same meeting, the environment committee agreed that ROHS should become open scope to cover all electrical and electronic equipment, with some exemptions such as renewable energy generation, certain large-scale installations, industrial tools, material for military purposes and vehicles. Exclusions would be subject to review in 2014 and the committee suggested that the European Commission (EC) propose further exclusions within 18 months of the directive going into effect.

Additional substance restrictions would be introduced by the EC. This will use a procedure based on the one used for REACH substance restrictions, but taking account of waste disposal issues, especially in developing countries. The exact procedure is not yet decided, but will be based on proven risk, not only hazards, and on impact assessments that consider all potential alternatives.

Category 11 will be introduced and will capture all electrical and electronic equipment not covered by Categories 1 to 10 unless specifically excluded.

While not included in the June 2 vote, it is now virtually certain that ROHS will become a CE mark directive.

This will create a resource-sapping burden for manufacturers, importers and distributors and will establish the need for even more data, information and record keeping throughout the supply chain.

The full European Parliament will vote on the amended RoHS directive in the next few weeks and it could well be adopted by the end of the year. The crystal ball suggests that implementation will be late 2013 or 2014.