The RoHS Directive

Purpose
The Reduction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) states that new electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) shall not contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, poly-brominated biphenyls (PBB) or polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), except in certain applications, and then only up to the acceptable limits quoted.

Scope

The RoHS directive applies to the categories listed. Proposals for the inclusion of the medical devices and monitoring and control instruments categories will be reviewed.

• Large household appliances
  
• Small household appliances
  
• IT and telecommunications equipment
  
• Consumer equipment
  
• Lighting equipment
  
• Electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale stationary industrial tools)
  
• Toys, leisure and sports equipment
  
• Automatic dispensers

Producer compliance
The producers will also be required to review and change product designs to conform to the directive. This may involve major reassessments of products with regard to their complete lifecycle. This will be easy to quantifiably achieve with respect to the RoHS directive.