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Tuesday 18 November 2008
Design
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|NewsletterLegislation
RoHS crackdown is working in the UK
by Steve Bush
Wednesday 14 February 2007
The majority of UK firms are complying with the RoHS Directive and firms have so far escaped prosecutions, but only just in some cases.
“Ninety nine per cent of products are ninety nine per cent compliant,“ Chris Smith who heads UK RoHS enforcement told EW. “We have been very close to prosecuting companies, to the point of assembling formal case files, then we have solved the problems before we got to court.”
National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML) is the UK’s RoHS enforcer and, according to Smith, continues its policy of helping producers of non-compliant products in the first instance.
“We are not in the business of putting businesses out of business, we are in the business of generating compliance,” said Smith. “When we find poor compliance, we have been to see a company and worked with them, and their compliance has gone up.”
However, there is still a remarkable level of ignorance in some market sectors.
NWML works through a combination of documentation requests and product testing. It’s latest target is firms assembling and selling personal computers in the UK. “We have spoken to a range of these companies, large and small, and 20 per cent - even some of the multi-million turn-over companies - have the view that they are not ‘producers’ in the terms of the Directive, even though they are,” said Smith.
So far, NWML has concentrated on consumer goods, with industrial equipment to follow. A wide variety of electrical and electronic goods have been tested and patterns of non-compliance have emerged.
The most common faults, according to Smith, are on re-work where lead-inclusive solder has been used and where there has been hand soldering, on flying leads for example. “Hexavalent chromium is still turning up, and we occasionally find lead in plastics.”
XRF is NWML’s first line screening technique, followed by more detailed examination of suspect parts. “We have only ever found a single product that passed OK through screening first time, and that was a graphics card,” said Smith.
“Ninety nine per cent of products are ninety nine per cent compliant,“ Chris Smith who heads UK RoHS enforcement told EW. “We have been very close to prosecuting companies, to the point of assembling formal case files, then we have solved the problems before we got to court.”
National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML) is the UK’s RoHS enforcer and, according to Smith, continues its policy of helping producers of non-compliant products in the first instance.
“We are not in the business of putting businesses out of business, we are in the business of generating compliance,” said Smith. “When we find poor compliance, we have been to see a company and worked with them, and their compliance has gone up.”
However, there is still a remarkable level of ignorance in some market sectors.
NWML works through a combination of documentation requests and product testing. It’s latest target is firms assembling and selling personal computers in the UK. “We have spoken to a range of these companies, large and small, and 20 per cent - even some of the multi-million turn-over companies - have the view that they are not ‘producers’ in the terms of the Directive, even though they are,” said Smith.
So far, NWML has concentrated on consumer goods, with industrial equipment to follow. A wide variety of electrical and electronic goods have been tested and patterns of non-compliance have emerged.
The most common faults, according to Smith, are on re-work where lead-inclusive solder has been used and where there has been hand soldering, on flying leads for example. “Hexavalent chromium is still turning up, and we occasionally find lead in plastics.”
XRF is NWML’s first line screening technique, followed by more detailed examination of suspect parts. “We have only ever found a single product that passed OK through screening first time, and that was a graphics card,” said Smith.
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