NRCAN proposes date change for standby and external power supply (EPS) regulations. For Standby requirements related to Compact Audio products, Television and Video products, the effective date of manufacture, verification mark and reporting will be delayed to May 1, 2011. For EPS, the effective date of manufacture remains at July 1, 2010; however, verification mark (or performance certification if using Roman Numeral mark) and reporting will be delayed to May 1, 2011.

The EU Commission has published its decision to revise the RoHS exemptions. Many of the exemptions were rewritten and/or partitioned to phase out applications that no longer require the use of restricted substances. Several electronic components that were previously RoHS compliant by exemption will become non-compliant and will need to be replaced in RoHS compliant products.

Environment Canada has added Bisphenol-A (BPA) to its list of Toxic Substance (Schedule 1 of CEPA, 1999). BPA is the monomer used for the production of Polycarbonate plastic. The addition of BPA to Schedule 1 allows the Canadian Government to implement restrictions or other measures to manage the substance.

Canada published its “Summary of the Draft Screening Assessment Report on Hexabromocyclododecane” (HBCDD) and is considering adding the substance to CEPA Schedule – the list of toxic substances.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act recently signed into law will require US Electronics manufacturers to report whether or not their products use or contain conflict minerals (or their derivatives) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or an adjoining country. The minerals in question are used to derive metals that are commonly used by the electronics industry: tin, tantalum, tungsten, niobium, or gold. Many electronic components and virtually all complex products will contain these metals.

The government of Canada has published its final revised risk management strategy for polybrominated diphenyl ethers. The strategy proposes to further broaden the control measures for decaBDE. The new regulations would expand the prohibition to all PBDEs that were assessed (including decaBDE). The government further proposes to develop control measures under CEPA 1999 to restrict PBDEs (including decaBDE in manufactured and imported products.

ECHA adds eight substances to the Candidate List for authorization.
The European Chemical Agency formally added eight additional substances to the SVHC Candidate list. The substances include: Trichloroethylene, Boric acid, Disodium tetraborate, anhydrous, Tetraboron disodium heptaoxide, hydrate, Sodium chromate, Potassium chromate, Ammonium dichromate, Potassium dichromate. Addition of the substance to the candidate list triggers immediate disclosure obligations for manufacturers, importers, and distributors.

Bill C-36, a revised Consumer Product Safety Act was introduced in the Canadian parliament. It proposes several new obligations and compliance requirements for manufacturers, importers and distributers to improve product safety in Canada.

EU Parliament ENVI committee approved compromise amendments for recast of RoHS Directive (RoHS-2).  Key changes are to open scope to all electronics (unless explicitly excluded) and to add organobromine and organochlorine flame retardants, PVC and several other substances for priority consideration of restriction. No additional substances will be initially added to the list of restricted substances.