If you thought that RoHS was a one hit wonder, you were sadly mistaken.
The RoHS Directive calls for a complete review of all substance, scope and exemptions every four years. The first substance review is in full swing. The Oko Institut, who is conducting the review, has drawn up a list of 46 substances for scrutiny.
According to the covering letter the list “is based on declarations provided by suppliers and manufacturers of EEE, existing studies, XRF-analyses and other information.”
Interestingly, the criteria of selecting these substances are evocative of REACH not RoHS. The criteria were “substances classified as CMR, PBT / vPvB or endocrine disruptors”, and were drawn from Directive 67/548/EEC, which has been superseded by (incorporated into) REACH. The criteria and the term ‘candidate list” are used in REACH for forming the list of Substances of Very High Concern. It is substances on this list in REACH that will be assessed for restrictions.
In other recent RoHS news the exemption for Deca BDE was rescinded as of 30 June 2008. Also the exemption for “Lead as impurity in RIG (rare earth iron garnet) Faraday rotators used for fibre optic communications systems” is undergoing the process for removal. Related to our industry PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonates) have been banned by Directive 2006/122/EC as from 27 June 2008. PFOS is commercially available in the form of salts or other derivatives such as polymers. Their main characteristics are repulsion of water and oil, resistance to heat and chemicals, non absorption of light. Their main uses are in etching baths and photolithography and in the manufacture of Integrated circuits.
As RoHS matures and changes the original certificates of compliance that covered the 6 original substances with the original exemptions become less and less valid. However, for smaller companies a pragmatic, risk-based approach can be taken to any new substance restriction or exemption removal. Take Deca BDE for example. The removal of the exemption will not affect metal parts. Deca BDE is an organic flame retardant and cannot exist in a metal. So Certificates of compliance for metal parts will still be 100% valid. Then, looking at electronic components, any ceramic components will not have a flame retardant in them so their CoCs will still be valid. This then leaves us with plastic parts that may be at risk. Again a pragmatic risk-based approach can be taken. To add a flame retardant costs money, so one will normally only be specified if the part has a risk of getting very hot and starting a fire, or significantly adding to the spread of a fire. Enclosures are very much in this latter category. It must be stressed that this approach is for the Small to Medium Enterprises only. The authorities will expect large companies to be collecting substance level data on all components and proactively comply 100%. In any event, a transgression of the requirements is very likely to result in a block on all shipments until the issue is resolved.
The RoHS Enforcement authorities have been busy in Scandinavia and the UK. In Scandanavia 152 products have been investigated in Scandinavia. This resulted in 22 cases of non-compliance, of which one was a prosecution. In most of the non-compliant products, the violation was lead in plastic or lead in solder.
The case involving prosecution concerned a Swedish importer bringing in no-name electric glue guns from China, which contained 1% or more concentration of lead in the plug casing. The court must now decide on punitive action for this case, but in all cases of non-compliance, authorities at minimum, made companies take the non-compliant products off the market. This in itself could be much more significant than any fine. In the UK, in 2007, the first full year of compliance enforcement, NWML detected some 300 cases of non-compliance that were resolved in a positive way by engaging with the company and remedying the situation.
Additionally, authorities sent out 25-30 compliance notices, 10 enforcement notices and brought two cases to justice. Of the two cases "brought to justice”, both were UK companies importing from the Far East. One case involved a company aware of RoHS but for commercial reasons "they took decisions that were not appropriate," according to Chris Smith of NWML.
The second involved a product with a significant amount of mercury. Also in the UK the authorities stopped a shipment of non-compliant products before it entered the EU port. Last year the UK authorities were hamstrung by a lack of power to effectively police certain aspects of RoHS on imports, and indeed for 2007 the NWML targeted only domestically manufactured products. The legislation has since been amended to give the NWML the powers needed to target imported product. Clearly this is working.
A common finding between the Scandinavian Authorities and the UK Authorities was that companies were not correctly assessing compliance documentation. A recurring theme was test reports that had not been correctly assessed and the wrong conclusion drawn. There were also several instances of documentation clearly showing non-compliance but the documentation being accepted as showing compliance. RoHS-International has found this numerous times in its audits, primarily with full material disclosures. A number of companies have fallen into the trap of requesting full material disclosures, and then fail to assess whether the part is compliant or not and simply file the disclosure as a proof of compliance. An in-depth knowledge of exemptions is needed to assess some material disclosures. So policing of RoHS is happening, but companies being caught are keeping quiet about it.
