Lowry: RoHS Compliance Has Many Unanswered Questions

Jason Sandefur

At a Western Association of Fastener Distributors’ seminar held in Las Vegas during the National Industrial Fastener Show, more than one hundred manufacturers, distributors and platers expressed dismay at the lack of definitive information on the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances directive.
What constitutes compliance, and how that will be measured and enforced, remains unknown.
Brian Lowry, vice president of technical services for Curtis Metal Finishing Co., told his audience that the simplicity of the EU directive has created frustration about ensuring compliance. “There is no hard and fast rule … on compliance,” Lowry explained.
Many attendees expressed concern about issues with core materials (steel, aluminum, etc) whose hazardous substances they can”t control. Lowry said the EU directive includes exceptions for “homogenized” elements in a substance. For example, steel contains a certain amount of lead, which is exempt from RoHS because lead is considered homogeneous to the chemical composition of steel. But even those exemptions have prescribed limits for the level of hazardous materials included. “There remains a lot of gray area here,” Lowry noted.
Lowry warned that complying is not always as easy as making all product RoHS compliant because substituting one substance for another can create new problems with performance.
Jim Riley of Stork Materials Testing & Inspection said enforcement is all still up in the air. No one knows who will monitor product imports into the Europe, or how these items will be tested for RoHS compliance. In some cases, Riley said, you”re probably covered if you have a document (though that is not defined) confirming RoHS compliance, though such a “document” has not been defined by the EU.
Lowry believes that ultimately manufacturers will be on the front line of responsibility for the components in their finished product. He described RoHS as a “hand-down process instead of a hand-up issue.”
But no one knows for sure just where the buck stops when it comes to RoHS. “Ultimately, you won’t know (if you’re compliant) until you get sued,” one attendee noted. �2005 FastenerNews.com