Last month’s SBGi on HSF column, “Now What?,” focused on the emergence of RoHS and WEEE as part of the global hazardous-substance-free (HSF) movement. This month, we’ll look at what has been happening in the electrical and electronics equipment industries and in the European Union related to RoHS and WEEE, and the lessons learned.
Industry responds to the EU directives
In general, chaos, confusion and denial have characterized industry’s response to the European Union directives to restrict hazardous substances in products and to manage processing at the product’s end of life to ensure proper disposal of those substances. While the directives were issued a few years ago, they only came into force on July 1, 2006. Many companies struggled mightily, nobly and at great cost to ensure compliance by the effective date. Many others have not, choosing instead to wait and see what happens.
The rate at which industry in different parts of the world has labored to become RoHS compliant has varied widely. The component manufacturers of Asia have been the leaders in making RoHS-compliant parts and reducing hazardous substances in their products. On the other hand, a major distributor of electronic components anticipated that their U.S. customers would demand a high percentage of RoHS-compliant parts starting very early in 2006. As of a couple weeks ago, the report was that the anticipated demand had yet to manifest itself and the distributor was having to adjust its stock as if RoHS wasn’t a big deal to most of its U.S. customers.
On July 1 companies became legally and financially liable for compliance. In the language of the EU directives, the penalties and consequences of noncompliance are murky. Individual countries within the EU are free to establish their own processes for determining compliance and their own policies regarding enforcement and penalties. These seem likely to encompass fines and, potentially, the barring of the importation of offending products and prohibiting offending producers from selling within the EU.
Individual countries’ policies have recently taken shape. The National Weights and Measures Laboratory was awarded the contract to set up the United Kingdom’s national RoHS enforcement body. In the enforcement section of their Web site they articulate their philosophical approach to enforcement, “We will help those that are aiming to comply and pursue vigorously those that intend to flout compliance.” “Pursue vigorously” isn’t defined there, but it sounds ominous enough to affect corporate behaviors.
Industry’s four primary approaches to RoHS compliance
So what has been industry’s response? The four primary approaches have been:
Of course, how a company responds to RoHS has varied, depending on where they reside in the supply chain, with the above four approaches being largely, but not exclusively, OEM-applicable. Similar suppliers have been busy with component testing, subassembly level testing, certificates of compliance, certificates of chemical analysis and certification to various customer Green Process programs.
There are hazards aplenty in all four primary approaches.
Let’s consider the testing approach. While most producers of electronics and electrical goods have in-house laboratories, few have sufficient expertise in the level of materials testing needed to assure RoHS compliance. Use of third-party labs with appropriate expertise is important. Reliance on the popular hand-held XRF testing devices is questionable if it’s used for more than preliminary screening. Perhaps more helpful in assuring compliance are inductively coupled plasma/mass spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma/atomic emission spectroscopy, atomic absorption, cold vapor atomic absorption, gas chromatography mass spectroscopy and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. How many of the smaller companies can afford to put such technology to work? Then there’s the simpler issue of the test sample. How can one assume that the test sample is representative of the total goods produced?
Self-declaration of RoHS compliance from suppliers has inherent flaws as well. In an environment where compliance isn’t easily determined, the opportunity for both knowing and unknowing misrepresentation of compliance is great. Many self-declarations of compliance are proving less than reliable.
Widely considered environmental leaders, Hewlett-Packard and Apple Computer have recently come up short. The Greenpeace Science Unit of Europe sent recently produced laptops from both companies to an independent Danish laboratory to determine “if the top companies are matching nice green words with real action.”
What did they find?
“Results for HP revealed high levels of a number of chemicals in its components, in particular the highest levels by far of PBDEs (a class of brominated fire retardants) including something called decaBDE. HP’s Web site claims it removed decaBDE from its products years ago. Either HP is lying or it needs to ask its suppliers some tough questions. Lead was also found in the soldering.” The explanation seems to be less ominous. A senior HP executive reports that the very low levels of DecaBDE must be due to contaminated recycled plastics getting into the plastic stream—a simple problem to fix—and they have supplier assessment, audit and compliance management processes in place to keep this from happening again. This all goes to show if a company such as HP incurs such a challenge, many other companies are clearly vulnerable.
Regarding Apple Computer, Apple has recently launched its new range of MacBooks, but what you also get with a new MacBook is the highest level of another type of toxic flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol A. Apple claims it’s looking for alternatives, but for now it appears to be using far more of this toxic chemical than its competitors.
Showing “due diligence” as a defense when found noncompliant has become a strategy for many companies, because the EU directives allow for this. The United Kindom RoHS enforcement body opines about due diligence that, “In terms of RoHS, this means that you have looked at the way in which you control your production and material supply and put in place a series of appropriate checks to prevent any problems occurring. Once you have done this you must ensure that the system of checks is being carried out. If you have a system that nobody knows about, or cares about, the system is useless and any defence is likely to fail.”
Lastly, the final industry approach of seeking a RoHS compliance certificate from some company has the advantage of showing good effort to ensure compliance, but there’s no evidence a company-sponsored certificate will carry much weight.
The four approaches taken by industry are arguably categorized as “product”-focused. This may be the root cause for why they won’t stand the test of time. To the long-time quality professional, this may seem like déjà vu. Decades ago, logic moved most of industry to a process approach. Recent EU documents about RoHS compliance are chock-full of process language, such as that above from the UK enforcement body.
A clear need
It seems clear industry’s best approach will be a globally accredited process management system that encompasses all the elements of hazardous substances in products and the processes that produce them. This approach will need to address the current EU RoHS and WEEE, as well as many other hazardous substance regulations cropping up around the globe, such as China RoHS and California RoHS.
Leaders of Chinese Taipei’s electrical equipment and electronics industries approached an organization within the World Trade Organization scheme to produce such an approach to be used globally. Next month’s SBGi on HSF column will detail the results of that request and the international framework for industry trade standards.
Sign In to get started!
