Huge numbers of small businesses are still ignorant of the RoHS and WEEE Directives, claims the National Physical Laboratory (NPL).
“We approached the Federation of Small Businesses,” Alan Brewin, who heads RoHS and WEEE projects at NPL told Electronics Weekly. “They have got a database of companies, and out of them 20,000 UK companies could be impacted.”
Those companies which produce non-compliant products risk having no market by the middle of next year, when legislation is due to take effect.
“It is a much bigger risk to small companies as they don’t have the resources [to study the Directives],” said Brewin.
Ignorance is not evenly spread within companies. “I feel there is a very high awareness amongst engineers and process people,” said Brewin.
“Where there is no awareness is in management and procurement, and people in quality [departments] are less aware that they might have to re-qualify products, for example,” he said.
Government-funded NPL was initially only researching lead-free soldering, but two or three years of consultancy for firms has revealed widespread lack of compliance knowledge.
This has prompted the organisation to broaden its activities into general RoHS education, and then into the WEEE Directive.
NPL has now teamed up with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) to try and reach its affected members.
“We are offering free workshops and all of our reports are free,” said Brewin. However, “we do have to charge if we go into a company and help them build a compliance plan”.
Activities with the FSB kick off in the near future with an e-campaign to advertise the Directives and the workshops.
www.fsb.org.uk
www.npl.co.uk