Restriction of Hazardous Substances

Directive 2002/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment was transposed into national law in Autumn 2005. This Directive bans the placing on the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants. Manufacturers need to understand the requirements of the RoHS Directive to ensure that their products, and their components, comply. The enforcement body for the new regulations is the National Weights and Measure Laboratory (NWML)

Informal Consultation on the European Commission's proposed Recast of the WEEE & RoHS Directives

The Department has issued a consultation paper on the European Commission's proposed recast of the WEEE and RoHS Directives.  The proposals for changes to the WEEE Directive can be summarised as follows:

• that the scope (i.e.. which electrical goods are covered) of the Directive should be defined by reference to Annex I of the recast RoHS Directive,
• that the collection target should be changed from 4kg per head to a collection rate of 65% of average weight of sales of new electrical goods,
• that the recycling targets should be increased,
• that producers can show the cost of collection, treatment and disposal of new equipment at the time of purchase,
• that registers of electrical producers is enhanced to allow the ease of information exchange between Member States, and
• that a regime is introduced to monitor the export of WEEE outside the European Community.

The main changes proposed in the recast of the RoHS Directive are:

• That the scope of the RoHS Directive is defined in the Directive and the scope is expanded to include medical devices and monitoring & control equipment, and
• That the procedure for granting exemptions from RoHS for certain components, is refined and a four-year maximum validity period for all exemptions be introduced.

Recast of the WEEE and ROHS Directives - Consultation Paper (88kb)

Recast of the WEEE and ROHS Directives - Letters to Consultees (176kb)