Singapore Clarifies RoHS Proposal

The Singapore National Environment Agency (NEA) is proposing a Singapore RoHS regulation. The proposal aligns with the EU RoHS Directive, but initially targets only 6 common consumer product categories. The six product categories targeted for RoHS compliance are: Mobile Phones, Mobile computers, Refrigerators, Air conditioners, Panel TVs and Washing Machines. A NEA study has found that 95% of these products are already compliant and intends to ensure compliance of all such products that are sold in Singapore. The proposal suggests that a one-year grace period (transition time) will be provided for manufacturers and importers to comply with the restrictions from the date the regulation is gazetted.

In their response to a public consultation on the proposed regulation, the NEA clarified that

  • Batteries would be excluded from the scope of Singapore RoHS (same as EU RoHS)
  • The RoHS exemptions would be aligned with EU RoHS (Annex III) and updated regularly to remain in alignment.
  • Manufacturers and importers of EEE will be required to submit a RoHS Declaration of Conformity prior to selling EEE product in Singapore (this is different from the enforcement approach employed in the EU).
  • Non-RoHS EEE may still be manufactured in Singapore for export; however, the manufacturer will need to apply for a hazardous substance licence from NEA.

 

RoHS 2 Phthalates Restriction Clarified for Spare Parts and Cables

The European Commission has clarified the impact of the upcoming RoHS 2 Phthalates restrictions on spare parts and cables for products that were put on the EU market before the new substance restrictions come into effect.  The clarification was made March 13, 2015 in response to comments the EC had received to their WTO notification of the draft amendment adding the four phthalate substances to Annex II of the RoHS Directive (2011/65/EU).

The Commission proposed the following draft recommendation to be included in the ANNEX II amendment:

“The restriction of DEHP, BBP and DBP shall not apply to cables or spare parts for the repair, the reuse, the updating of functionalities or upgrading of capacity of the EEE of ANNEX I categories 1-7, 10 and 11 that is placed on the market before 22 July 2019, and the EEE of ANNEX I categories 8 and 9 that is placed on the market before 22 July 2021.”

ECD Compliance is providing services to assist manufacturers with implementing the phthalates restrictions in supply chain management and manufacturing operations efficiently and cost effectively.

 

 

EU REACH – 48 Substances to be Reviewed in 2015

ECHA has adopted a plan to evaluate 134 substances under the REACH regulation during the 2015-2017 timeframe. The plan, which is referred to as the Community rolling action plan (CoRAP), lists the substances that EU member states will be assessing and proposing as potential SVHCs for the Candidate List or other possible regulation under REACH. The plan contains 134 substances, 66 of which have been newly selected and 68 substances that are left over from the plan that was announced in March 2014.

Of the 134 substances, the intention is to evaluate at least 48 of the substances in 2016, another 48 substances in 2016, and 38 substances in 2017.

[1] ECHA press Release: http://echa.europa.eu/view-article/-/journal_content/title/evaluation-kicks-off-for-48-substances-in-2015

[2] ECHA proposal to the Member States: Draft Community Rolling Action Plan (CoRAP) update for years 2015-2017 http://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/13628/corap_2015_2017_en.pdf

[3] For additional information on the March 2014 plan, see the ECD blog post at http://rohs.ca/blog/2014/03/28/march-26-2014-eu-identifies-120-substances-for-evaluation-as-possible-svhcs/

BNST Permits in Canada – Recommendations for Importers and Foreign Manufacturers

BNST Use in Electrical and Electronic Products

As of March 14, 2015, the importation of products into Canada containing lubricants that use BNST as an additive will no longer be legal unless the importer has a permit from Environment Canada. BNST, a common abbreviation for the substance Benzenamine, N-phenyl-, Reaction Products with Styrene and 2,4,4-Trimethylpentene, provides benefit in lubricants as a antioxidant, corrosion inhibitor, scavenger, and anti-scaling agent; therefore, eliminating the BNST can impact performance and long-term reliability which needs to be carefully assessed during substitution. The substance is effective in improving reliability but is also toxic to human health and the environment.

The BNST ban has been a major challenge for the electrical, electronics and automotive industries; particularly any products that contain motors and sliding mechanisms that use lubricant.  For example, BNST lubricants were commonly used in many brands of computer hard disk drives (HDD). It may also be used in motors in HVAC equipment to improve reliability.  BNST is not currently listed on the EEE industry standard (IEC 62474) declarable substances list (DSL) which has caused a lack of visibility and declaration of the substance down the supply chain.  (Note: BNST will be added to the IEC 62474 DSL during the next update cycle (late March).

Many EEE manufacturers throughout the supply chain started re-designing products with BNST-free lubricants in 2014, but some of the design changes will not be completed until 2015. Many downstream manufacturers and importers have been learning about the use of BNST in their product just recently. They may also have large inventory of parts and products that may contain BNST, creating logistical challenges.  In some cases, manufacturers are also having difficulty in obtaining confirmation from their supply chain as to whether BNST is used or not. Spare parts that are in inventory and may no longer be in production will be a particular challenge for many organizations. Environment Canada has suggested that manufacturers and importers should use a conservative approach in such situations when it’s not possible to confirm that the product is BNST-free.

Additional background information on the BNST Regulation in Canada is provided in our previous article “BNST Restriction in Lubricants Takes Effect in Two Months“.

BNST Permits / Foreign Manufacturers

The Canadian Prohibition of Certain Toxic Substances Regulations, 2012 anticipated that it may not be possible to eliminate BNST for all products and it provides a mechanism for manufacturers and importers to obtain permits for up to an additional three years if requirements specified in the Regulations are met. If your organization needs additional time to eliminate BNST or to confirm it’s absence, obtaining a permit for March 2015-March 2016 can help reduce business risk and avoid customer issues.

Permit applications must be submitted by the Canadian manufacturer or the importer.This creates a challenge for U.S. or other foreign manufacturers that sell products to several Canadian importers. There is no mechanism in the regulations for a foreign manufacturer to obtain a permit (e.g. through an only representative as would be the case in the EU) and then have the permit available to downusers importers. However, there is a workaround. A foreign manufacturer may compile a group BNST permit application on behalf of its downstream importers.  In this way the manufacturer is supporting their customers by off-loading the permit application process. This ensures that they can continue their business operations without interruption (once the permit is granted).

Obtaining a BNST Permit as Quickly as Possible

The key to expediting a BNST permit application is to ensure that all of the information needed by Environment Canada to assess and grant the permit is provided in the application. Environment Canada cannot issue the permit if any of the permit requirements specified in the regulation are not met. If Environment Canada needs to request additional information, the process will be delayed.

The official BNST permit application processing time is 60 business days; however, Environment Canada has been able to process applications in signfiicantly less time when complete information is provided during the initial submission and is in a format that is easy to assess.

The permit application requires information on BNST use in products, sales data, sales forecast data, customer information and justification for continued use of BNST. Environment Canada has provided interpretation and guidance on some of these requirements which can help simplify the data collection. Also, confidential business information can be protected by using a slightly modified submission process.

ECD Compliance can assess your situation and quickly compile the permit application with the necessary information. The permit application can be compiled and submitted within a few days and will leverage our experience with the industry supply chain and the efforts underway to design out BNST. We have successfully worked with the electronics, HVAC, and automotive industries on BNST requirements and permits. If you are a foreign manufacturer that would like to submit a permit application for your importers, utilizing ECD Compliance as an independent third party can be ideal to protect your importers’ confidential information.

EU REACH – Consultation for Two New SVHCs

A public consultation on two new SVHC Candidate List proposals began on March 2, 2015 and will continue through April 16, 2015. The new substances proposed for addition to the SVHC Candidate List are:

  • 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, di-C6-10-alkyl esters; 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, mixed decyl and hexyl and octyl diesters with ≥ 0.3% of dihexyl phthalate (EC No. 201-559-5)
  • 5-sec-butyl-2-(2,4-dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3-dioxane [1], 5-sec-butyl-2-(4,6-dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3-dioxane [2] [covering any of the individual isomers of [1] and [2] or any combination thereof]

Assuming that no major discrepancies are identified during the consultation, the new SVHCs will likely be added to the SVHC Candidate List in June 2015.

The IEC 62474 validation team is currently assessing these substances to determine if they are constituents of EEE. The first substance is specified as a combination of two phthalates (neither of which is an SVHC) with small quantity (above 0.3%) of DnHP — this substance description is likely to be a challenge for the EEE supply chain to deal with.

RoHS Enforcement – Feb 2015

Information on several EU RoHS non-conformity issues have come to light over the past couple months.

Slovenia identified two RoHS non-compliant products on the EU RAPEX rapid alert system. European countries use the RAPEX system to facilitate the rapid exchange of information between Member States and the Commission about product non-conformities.

  1. Product: HAND BLENDER; Brand: SIMPEX; Name: Stabmixer; Risk: Certain solders on PCB and on motor contain lead (measured value up to 80.0%). The product does not comply with the Directive 2011/65/EC (RoHS 2) on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electric and electronic equipment.
  2. Product: AVIA Clock radio with alarm; Risk: The black plastic of the antenna wire, the orange plastic of the capacitor and brass component contain lead (measured value up to 0.19%), while some solders on PCB and brass component contain cadmium (measured value up to 0.071%). The product does not comply with the Directive 2011/65/EC (RoHS 2) on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electric and electronic equipment.

The UK RoHS enforcement authority, the National Measurements Office (NMO), published the results of a RoHS and Battery Directive compliance study on EEE toys. The report, released on February 20, 2015, highlights that 40% of the 15 products assessed had failed compliance for substance content, marking or batteries. The study focused on higher priced toys that ranged from £30 to over £100. The toys included: Educational Toys (x3), Sports and Outdoor Toys (x3), Musical Toys (x3), 0-3 Years Toys (x3), and 3+ Years Toys (x3).

Prior to testing, the NMO assessed each of the products and companies in terms of risk (previous history of company, product risk, subjectivity, size of company and market reach). The NMO is trying to develop a comprehensive risk assessment model and will use the results to help refine the model.

The report states that 2 out of 3 of the educational toys and 2 out of 3 of the 0-3 years toys were non-compliant. Of particular concern were riding toys of which 3 out of a total of 6 were non-compliant across the product categories.

In usual NMO fashion, none of the brand names or retailers/importers were identified in the report. The report indicates that investigations were opened into the non-compliant products and have progressed to what the NMO refers to as “appropriate outcomes”.

Conflict Minerals Reports due June 1, 2015 – Apple First to File

For those companies that are required to disclose their conflict minerals status under U.S. SEC rules, the 2014 Conflict Minerals disclosure (SEC Form SD) and conflict minerals report are due on Monday June 1, 2015.

Apple was the first company to file their 2014 conflict minerals report, several months ahead of the deadline. In being first, the Apple sets the bar before some other U.S. electronics manufacturers have even started writing their report. To no one’s surprise, Apple declared that the use of conflict minerals within their supply chain to be conflict indeterminate – this is the last of two years when they may claim this status.

In the conflict minerals report, Apple explains the steps that they have taken and the progress that they have made towards eliminating conflict minerals that directly or indirectly fund armed groups in the DRC. Apple explains that its Conflict Minerals program is driving its supply chain to use only smelters and refiners that have been certified to the Conflict-Free Sourcing Initiative’s Conflict-Free Smelter Program (CFSP). The report provides statistics that 199 of 225 smelters and refiners in its supply chain have been verified as conflict free or are in the audit process for certification. This is more than double the number of smelters and refiners identified in 2013.

The main body of the Apple Conflict Minerals Report is less than 10 pages in length. An additional 10 pages is provided for a table (Annex I) listing all of the smelters and refiners that were identified in Apple’s supply chain.

SVHC Threshold based on Components – ECJ Takes First Step in Ruling

The European Court of Justice has taken a first step in ruling that the REACH SVHC concentration threshold should be interpreted based on the “Once an Article, Always an Article” principle.

In its original guidance on reporting SVHCs in articles, the European Commission suggested that the 0.1% threshold should be based on the weight of the entire article as imported or as provided to the customer. However, six countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden) disagreed with this guidance. The dissenting countries argued that an SVHC that is above the 0.1% level in any individual article (component) within a product may pose a health or environmental risk and should trigger the reporting and communication obligations for the SVHC.

The difference in opinion between the two sides created a lot of ambiguity for industry, but industry generally followed the methodology given in the EC guidance document because of the sheer difficultly in meeting the obligations based on SVHC levels in each component in the product.

Legal proceedings were launched in France and are now forcing a resolution to the standoff. The European Court of Justice (ECJ), which has the final say in matters of EU regulatory interpretation, has been asked to rule on the question. As a first step toward a preliminary ruling, the Advocate General, an official legal advisor, has delivered his opinion. The Advocate General reviewed the regulatory text as written and found that there was no legal justification for the 0.1% w/w concentration to be applied to an article that is make up of many components that are themselves articles. He recommended that the preliminary ruling by the ECJ should interpret the REACH Article 33 communication obligations and REACH Article 7(2) notification to ECHA should be based on SVHC content in each original article (component) in the product.

The Advocate General’s opinion states:

V –  Conclusion

124. I therefore propose that the Court answer the request for a preliminary ruling as follows:

(1)      If the other conditions laid down in Article 7(2) of the REACH Regulation are satisfied,

(a)      the producer of an entire article consisting of component articles which, despite being integrated into an entire article, retain a shape, surface or design of their own, but were made or assembled by other producers, is required to notify ECHA if a substance meeting the criteria in Article 57 and identified in accordance with Article 59(1) is present in the entire article above a concentration of 0.1% weight by weight (w/w); and

(b)      the importer of an entire article consisting of component articles which, despite being integrated into an entire article, retain a shape, surface or design of their own is required to notify ECHA if a substance meeting the criteria laid down in Article 57 and identified in accordance with Article 59(1) is present in a component article above a concentration of 0.1% weight by weight (w/w).

(2)      The supplier of an entire article consisting of component articles which, despite being integrated into an entire article, retain a shape, surface or design of their own is required to provide information to recipients and, on request, consumers under Article 33 of the REACH Regulation on a substance meeting the criteria in Article 57 and identified in accordance with Article 59(1) if it is present in a component article above a concentration of 0.1% weight by weight (w/w) and relevant information is available to the supplier.

If the Advocate General’s opinion is accepted by the ECJ, the impact on industry will be significant. Even manufacturers that have been collecting SVHC information from suppliers may be impacted. The declaration of SVHC content in supplier parts is typically triggered based on 0.1% weight of the part provided by the supplier.  If the supplier part is itself composed of multiple articles, an SVHC in a subpart that exceeds the 0.1% threshold may be masked.

Many manufacturers would need to develop new material and SVHC risk assessment processes and collect new material declarations from their suppliers. Contact ECD Compliance for additional information on the impact of this ruling or for assistance in developing conformity assessment procedures.

 

CEN/CENELEC – Standardization Roadmap for 2015

The European Standardization Bodies CENELEC and CEN (which are the EU regional counterparts to IEC and ISO respectively) have published their 2015 roadmap of new standardization activities. This roadmap reflects the mandates that the two SDOs (standards development organizations) have received from the European Commission (EC) to develop standards needed for future regulations. It provides manufacturers with insight to emerging regulatory areas for environmental compliance of products sold in the EU.

In the Environment section of the roadmap, standardization requests from EC/EFTA include:

  • M/424 – Water Framework Directive
  • M/478 – Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
  • M/503 – Ambient air quality legislation
  • M/513 – Gaseous hydrogen chloride (HCl) emissions
  • M/514 – Volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions
  • M/518 – Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
  • M/526 – Adaptation to Climate Change

Elements of EU Work Programme for 2015 include:

  • 4. Waste recycling
  • 6. Air quality and industrial emissions
  • 4. Climate change and Resource Efficient Europe

Other standardization and activities relevant to the EEE industry and to be developed in 2015 include:

Resource efficiency – CEN and CENELEC will continue discussions with the European Commission with the aim of identifying possible standards that could contribute to the implementation of the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe (COM(2011) 571), which is one of the flagship initiatives under the Europe 2020 Strategy. It is possible that some new standardization activities will be launched in 2015.

Substances of high concern – CEN will complete the development of a standardization roadmap in relation to substances of high concern in articles, based on consultations with industry representatives and other stakeholders. The aim of this exercise is to identify which new standards might be needed to support the implementation of relevant European legislation such as the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Regulation, the Waste Directives, the POP (Persistent Organic Pollutants) Regulation, and the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment) Directive.

Several standards already exist within the EEE industry to address substance of high concern; however, few such standards exist for other products. Therefore, CEN has been asked to look at possible standards across all products (not just EEE). The key risk for the EEE industry is if any of the standards conflict with the existing EEE standards and force the EEE industry to change its procedures for restricted substance control.

 

Argentina – Proposed WEEE Bill Includes RoHS Restrictions

Argentina proposed a waste electronics (WEEE) bill in November 2014 that includes RoHS substance restrictions that would come into effect 2 years after the regulation enters into force. The bill, 9042-D-2014 titled “Management of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment”, would cover all 10 categories of EEE products as specified in the EU WEEE Directive and also batteries.

The proposed substance restrictions include the same six substances controlled by the EU’s RoHS Directive – lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). Products containing these substances would be banned from sale in the Argentine market.