Lawmakers seal deal on toxic substances in electronic goods

UK MEP Jill Evans (Greens/European Free Alliance), who steered the legislation through Parliament, said that "the revised rules adopted today will help make electronic goods safer, and reduce the release of hazardous substances into the environment. While we clearly would have preferred even stronger legislation, with explicit restrictions on new substances, the final compromise represents a clear improvement on the current situation".

The Parliament's Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) welcomed the final deal, "despite the fact that the inclusion of a list of brominated flame retardants, phthalates and more than 30 other harmful substances under the scope of the directive was not achieved, and that a tight time schedule on Council and member states in reviewing temporary existing exemptions was not imposed".

The European Commission welcomed the deal, which it said "will strengthen the existing law by streamlining procedures for future substance restrictions and by making it coherent with other chemicals legislation".

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik stressed the need to ensure that hazardous chemicals have "as little impact on the environment and human health as possible – both when we use them and when we throw them away". In the medium to long term the new rules "will eliminate the presence of banned substances in these products and in the waste derived from them," he said.

The European Committee of Manufacturers of Domestic Equipment (CECED) believes the revision "will strengthen clarity and predictability for all actors present on the market". However, it says it still finds unclear how the methodology for evaluating future substance restrictions will actually work in practice.

CECED is worried that the new directive may lead to the creation of double standards and uncertainty in the whole supply chain for EEE products as the directive "will not be fully aligned" with the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation.

Orgalime, the European Engineering Industries Association, said that despite a number of positive changes to the original draft proposal on the recast of the directive, the final text "does not resolve the very issue of legal uncertainty which the recast was meant to bring – on the contrary".

The association stressed that no impact assessment had been carried out on the proposed automatic extension of the scope of the directive to all EEE, including associated parts, in eight years' time.

Orgalime Director-General Adrian Harris said "this is the first time that our industry has been faced with 'sunrise legislation'. Automatically multiplying the scope of legislation and proposing to deal with capital goods in much the same way as consumer goods unless the institutions decide otherwise is hardly something which we would see as Smart Regulation". 

First Solar, a leading producer of thin-film photovoltaic modules, welcomed the deal for its "continued exclusion of photovoltaic solar panels from the scope of the RoHS Directive".

It also drew attention to the directive's recital, which "clearly states that renewable energy technologies like PV do not belong into the RoHS Directive". 

"RoHS is intended for household electrical and electronic goods that risk entering an uncontrolled waste stream," while photovoltaic systems are permanently installed and then de-installed at end-of-life by professionals on roofs or on the ground as part of an energy-generating system, the company stressed.