On January 12, 2017, ECHA published its update to the REACH Candidate List by adding four SVHCs (Substances of Very High Concern), bringing the total number of SVHCs on the Candidate List to  173 entries.

The update typically occurs in December but was delayed by ECHA until January 2017 due to the timing of the Member State Committee (MSC) meeting (December 12-16, 2017). The MSC must approve each addition to the Candidate List before the update is implemented.

Four of the six SVHCs that were under consideration[1] for the Candidate List were unanimously approved by the MSC. The four that were added are listed in Table 1. Two of these four SVHCs are potential constituents of EEE products.  Please see the article “IEC 62474 – Declarable Substance List Updated” in this report for additional information.

The other two substances under consideration did not receive unanimous agreement among the MSC members. These are: 4-tert-butylphenol (PTBP) (endocrine disruptor), and benzene-1,2,4-tricarboxylic acid 1,2-anhydride (trimellitic anhydride, TMA) (respiratory sensitiser). Both substances had been identified as equivalent to CMR/PBT; making the determination more subjective. ECHA will submit the MSC opinions for these substances to the European Commission for review — the Commission has three months to prepare draft proposals and take final decisions. Additional information is available in a press release posted by ECHA[2] on December 19, 2016.

Table 1: SVHCs Added to the REACH Candidate List on January 12, 2017

Note: although ECHA included the commonly used synonyms of bisphenol A and BPA as part of the substance name in its press release, the official Candidate List only includes the proper substance name (4,4’-isopropylidenediphenol) without any synonyms.

[1] EU REACH Candidate List of SVHCs, https://echa.europa.eu/web/guest/candidate-list-table

[2] ECHA press release, https://echa.europa.eu/-/member-state-committee-issues-four-svhc-agreements-and-two-opinions

IEC National Committees (NCs) overwhelmingly approved the draft IEC 63000 “Technical documentation for the assessment of electrical and electronic products with respect to the restriction of hazardous substances”. Voting closed on July 1, 2016 and the ballot received almost unanimous approval (including from the U.S. and Canada) except for a single no vote.

The no vote is with regard to a CENELEC procedural concern rather than a technical issue. The European CENELEC organization (the standards body that published EN 50581 for EU RoHS) will simultaneously publish the new EN 63000. Once EN 63000 is published, the European Commission will update the harmonized standard for EU RoHS to include EN 63000 which will eventually replace EN 50581. In 2019, after a 3-year transition period, the EN 50581 will be withdrawn by CENELEC.

The Taiwan Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) in August announced their schedule for bringing product categories into scope of their RoHS-like regulation (CNS 15663), as reported by ChemicalWatch. The regulation was announced via a WTO notification in mid-2015 but the actual compliance dates were still up in the air at that time. The following products and compliance dates have been reported:

• 1 December 2016 – drinking fountains;
• 1 July 2017 – IT equipment, including automatic data processing machines, printers, photocopying machines, televisions and monitors. Also proposed for this date are projectors and lighting equipment, such as fluorescent tubes; and
• 1 January 2018 – word processors, such as typewriters and cashiers (43 items in total) and wireless items, such as keyboards, mice and scanners (48 items in total).

The list of IT products for 1 July 2017 date is generally aligned with the scope proposed in the July 2015 WTO notification plus the extension notified in September 2015 (reported in the July 2016 and October 2015 ECD Environmental Reports). Certain accessory products and other long life-cycle products such as typewriters and cash registers were given additional time. The inclusion of drinking fountains in the timeline is presumably linked to recent concerns and regulations related to Lead (Pb) in drinking water faucets.

The Taiwan regulation follows the EU RoHS Directive in excluding certain types of products and parts such as batteries and military equipment.

The RoHS requirements are implemented under the Taiwan “Commodity Inspection Act”, referencing Taiwan BSMI standard CNS 15663 “Guidance to reduction of the chemical substances in electrical and electronic equipments” and in particular, Section 5 “marking of presence” .

The Taiwan RoHS regulation requires specific registration, marking, labeling and testing requirements as specified in CNS 15663.  These are somewhat aligned with the China RoHS requirements, but are still different.

One June 27, 2016, the Commission posted Oeko-Institut’s report on the bulk of the requests for EU RoHS exemption renewals. The report covers renewal requests for 29 RoHS 2 Annex III exemptions including: no. l(a to e -lighting purpose), no. l(f – special purpose), no. 2(a), no. 2(b)(3), no. 2(b)(4), no. 3, no. 4(a), no. 4(b), no. 4(c), no. 4(e), no. 4(f), no. 5(b), no. 6(a), no. 6(b), no. 6(c), no. 7(a), no. 7(c) – I, no. 7(c) – II, no. 7(c) – IV, no. 8(b), no. 9, no. 15, no. 18b, no. 21, no. 24, no. 29, no. 32, no. 34, no. 37.

In general, all of the exemptions with renewal requests have been recommended for renewal in one form or another; however, several of the exemptions have a narrower scope of allowed use than the current exemption or a short timeframe before expiry for certain applications.  The complete report (all 864 pages) is available on the Commission’s website. A summary table of recommendations is available in the Executive Summary at the front of the report.  We’ve also provided below an excerpt, analysis and discussion of the more commonly used exemptions in EEE products.

Note: the dates in the discussion below focus on product categories 1-7, 10, and 11. The exemption period for category 8 (medical devices) and 9 (monitoring and control instruments) is typically recommended for a longer time given the extra two years provided to these products in the RoHS Directive.

Exemption 6 – Lead in Alloys

The consultant’s recommendations for the lead in alloys exemptions mark the beginning of the end – the Commission’s push to begin phasing out these lead in alloy exemptions wherever possible.  The 6a (lead in steel), 6b (lead in aluminium alloys), and 6c (lead in copper alloys) exemptions are recommended for renewal, but generally with a short three-year duration for most product categories.  Some of the exemptions are also recommended for carving into multiple parts, usually with tighter scope and/or reduced concentration levels.

The renewal applications did not provide a lot of information to distinguish which applications still need the exemption and which don’t; therefore the consultant proposes a three-year timeframe for manufacturers and their supply chain to provide better information to justify longer term exemptions for applications that still need them; the consultants, otherwise recommend that the exemptions are allowed to expire after the three years. This “ultimatum” will certainly cause significant concern within the EEE industry and supply base. The consultants acknowledge that machining and other fabrication processes may need to be modified to accommodate non-lead materials.

Exemption 6a (Lead as an alloying element in steel for machining purposes and in galvanized steel containing up to 0.35% lead by weight) was split up based on application. In particular the allowed concentration level for galvanized steel components has been reduced to 0.2% lead. This exemption is known to be misused in many steel parts, regardless of application and the need for using lead. Separating the exemption based on application may put more visibility and accountability to justify the purpose of the lead in steel.

The European Commission has published statistics for 2015 on notices of unsafe products as processed through the EU’s rapid information system (RAPEX). According to the Commissions statistics, there were 1752 notifications during 2015. Electrical appliances and equipment accounted for 199 of the notifications.

An update to the enterprise server specification for Energy Star is underway — this will be version 3.0 of the specification. The first draft specification and a cover letter were posted on the Energy Star website6 on July 27, 2016. The U.S. EPA is requesting feedback on the specification until August 26, 2016.
The cover letter identifies the primary goals of the first draft of the specification as:

• establish revised Idle State power requirements and expand their scope to additional server types;
• determine more aggressive power supply efficiency requirements; and
• gather feedback regarding the approach for Active State power metrics and requirements to be developed for Draft 2.

Given the opportunity for conflicts in the Energy Star specification with the upcoming EU Server efficiency measures (lot 9), the cover letter notes that the “EPA will work in cooperation with the European Commission throughout the revision process”.