[photopress:rohs.jpg,full,alignright]In July 2006 the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive came into effect. Labeling issues, exemption questions, materials declaration, part number changes and compliance processes all presented problems in the logistic industry’s first major step toward better environmental procedures.
Steve Schultz, director of strategic planning and communications for Avnet Logistics, said, ‘The general awareness of contaminants in products and general environmental concerns are raising and that doesn’t turn around.’
While the industry has yet to completely catch up with the EU directive — probably less than half are totally there — the environmental compliance issue will not go away.
Jeff Shafer, a Newark InOne senior VP, said, ‘There’s still a ways to go and RoHS will go into 2007. Initially we thought it would be done and we’d be in that 80 to 85 percentile at the end of the year. We don’t see that happening.’
So the supply chain will faces challenges in this area and they will increase. The biggest environmental regulation challenge that will come in 2007 will be the Chinese law ‘Management Methods for Controlling Pollution by Electronic Information Products.’ This is the China RoHS which comes into affect on March 1, 2007.
It is similar to the EU RoHS in that it aims to limit the same six hazardous substances in electronics — lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, polybrominated biphenyl flame retardants and polybrominated diphenyl ether flame retardants. But the China RoHS varies from the European directive.
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) cautioned its members in a November note, ‘This law is unlike the European Union’s Restriction on Hazardous Substances directive in numerous key details — do not assume your compliance with, or exclusion from, EU RoHS will result in compliance with or exclusion from China RoHS.’
China RoHS will be implemented in two phase. The first phase will see administrative requirements put in place that necessitate environmental labels and supporting self-declared information in Chinese relating to the presence of the six hazardous substances in all ‘electronic information products.’
China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in March listed more than 1,800 specific parts, components and materials that it considers EIPs.
The second phase has not yet been declared as to dates or catalog of parts covered so that the logistics industry is worried as to whether it will be covered.
What is known is that the products listed in the catalog will be faced with the same restrictions on substances as outlined by EU RoHS and that these products will require pre-market certification labels that differ from the crossed out rubbish bins elected by the EU. Unlike EU RoHS, however, materials compliance may not be done internally and will need to be tested for in one of 18 specified China labs.
SEMI’s suggested first course of action is to explore a translated EIP list to see what parts, products and materials the MII will consider under its administrative measure.
Source: Electronic News