RoHS directive status update

This has been contributed by Gary Nevison, Premier Farnell

The RoHS directive has been under review with extensive discussions between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The Rapporteur of the European Parliament environment committee had proposed that all brominated and chlorinated flame retardants and PVC should be banned by RoHS.

However, due to overwhelming opposition, this has been dropped and replaced by a requirement that the European Commission consider as a high priority whether it is necessary to restrict these substances as well as several others.

Green groups claim that most organobromine and organochlorine compounds are hazardous. When the research data is fully evaluated, there is no evidence of harmful effects for the majority of these substances and only a few have been found to be hazardous and these are already, or soon will be, restricted by European Union (EU) legislation.

However, they are correct when they say that uncontrolled burning of plastics that contain these substances and also PVC can cause the emission of very toxic and carcinogenic dioxins and furans although these substances are also emitted from home refuse burning, metals manufacture and wood preservatives as well as the open burning of waste, typically in developing countries.

Banning these substances in the EU only would have almost no benefit. Firstly, it will be many years before the existing stock of equipment that contains organohalogens reaches end-of-life, secondly, in Asia, most of the e-waste currently being recycled is domestic and so EU legislation would have no effect and thirdly, burning halogen-free plastics on open fires emits different dangerous substances, in particular polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are also toxic and carcinogenic.

Some consumer electronics manufacturers have policies of not using halogenated flame retardants or PVC. However, most manufacturers are opposed to banning these substances. The health and environmental benefits of such as ban are uncertain and appear to be limited whereas the cost of substitution would be extremely high.

Many of the possible alternatives have not been tested as extensively as the most common organohalogen flame retardants and PVC and although most are probably safe, this cannot be known with certainty.

There is no doubt that substitutes exist for PVC and for organobromine and organochlorine flame retardants for most but not all applications. However, substitution is often not straightforward as these are seldom drop in replacements.

Plastics will usually need to be completely reformulated and their properties may be different and reliability could be affected in some cases. Substitutes will usually be more expensive - if they were cheaper then manufacturers would already have changed!

It is far from certain that there is a real benefit from not using these substances. It seems likely that it will be the responsibility of the European Commission to answer this question by carrying out an impact assessment to determine whether the very high cost justifies the benefit, whatever these turn out to be from their study.

As the proposal to ban additional substances has been dropped by the European Parliament environment committee (apart from two nanomaterials), there may be enough agreement between the European Parliament and Council of Ministers on the main RoHS issues for them to agree on a recast directive before the end of 2010.

The main changes would include:
Open scope (a Category 11 would capture all EEE not covered in Categories 1 to 10) with the exclusion of transport, large-scale stationary industrial tools, equipment that is part of other equipment that is out of scope and renewable energy technology.

The exclusion of fixed installations is also possible, but there is less agreement on this issue.

Additional substance restrictions, including those on a priority list for review, could be introduced in the future including brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, PVC, arsenic compounds and all the substances on the REACH SVHC Candidate List for authorisation.

Future substance restrictions are likely to be based on processes used under REACH. These would be based on proven risk to health and the environment, rather than the RoHS approach that is based on potential risk without full assessment.

Changes to the exemptions procedure are also likely but exact details are subject to continued negotiation.

The final vote of the full European Parliament is expected in October according to Belgium authorities, who currently own the EU Presidency.