France has announced its intention to enact detailed rules for the application of Article L. 541-9-1 of the Environmental Code. The regulation requires producers and importers of certain “waste-generating products” to provide proper information to consumers about environmental quality and characteristics of the product. Several types of consumer electronics and IT products are on the list of “waste-generating products”.  A draft decree was sent by France to the European Commission to notify their intention.

Those environmental qualities and characteristics shall include, depending on the product categories concerned:

• the incorporation of recycled material,
• the use of renewable resources, sustainability, compostability, reparability, possibilities for re-use, recyclability,
• the presence of hazardous substances; precious metals (gold, silver, platinum and palladium) or rare earth metals (scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium), traceability and
• the presence of plastic microfibres.

The requirement on plastic microfibres is focused on textiles but could be relevant for e-textile products.

The regulation also prohibits including on a product or package the words “biodegradable”, “environmentally friendly” or any other equivalent.

The draft decree is available from the Commission website[1].

The decree is proposed to enter into force on 1 January 2022 with compliance deadlines starting January 1, 2022 for some of the requirements.

[1] France consumer information decree, https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/tris/index.cfm/en/search/?trisaction=search.detail&year=2021&num=644&dLang=EN