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EU lead-free directive

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|3. This Directive does not apply to spare parts for the repair, |or to the reuse, of electrical and electronic equipment put on |the market before 1 July 2006.

So that would seem to cover stocks of old chips. IC manufacturers are going to need to be lead-free after July 2006, for Euro sales, but 'put on the market' would seem to cover anything made/invoiced prior to that ?

and there are more exemptions here :

|(11) Exemptions from the substitution requirement should be |permitted if substitution is not possible from the scientific |and technical point of view or if the negative environmental |or health impacts caused by substitution are |likely to outweigh the human and environmental benefits |of the substitution. Substitution of the hazardous |substances in electrical and electronic equipment should |also be carried out in a way so as to be compatible with |the health and safety of users of electrical and electronic |equipment (EEE).

|7. ? Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. tin-lead |solder alloys containing more than 85 % lead), |? lead in solders for servers, storage and storage array systems |(exemption granted until 2010), |? lead in solders for network infrastructure equipment for switching, |signalling, transmission as well as network |management for telecommunication, |? lead in electronic ceramic parts (e.g. piezoelectronic devices).

The target is mainly the high volume/short life/disposable consumer products, (rightly so). It seems other large industry groups have lobbied for exemptions...

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville
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Of course, as part of the fee, you'd demonstrate the 'instrument'?

--
  Keith
Reply to
keith

Ok, it fair to shoot your mouth off at left-pondia's politics, but not the other way? Gotcha.

--
  Keith
Reply to
keith

Hello Keith,

Well, I try to stay out of political dicussions on Usenet. At the local pub that's a different matter (but I'll listen to the other side).

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Well, I think we all pretty much know the drill - "They" are ignorant dupes, and "We" are the custodians of Truth. ;-P

--
Cheers!
Rich
 ------
 "Hickory Dickory Dock, 
  Three mice ran up a clock!
  The clock struck one,
  Right in the balls!

  There was an old woman,
  Who lived in a shoe,
  Who had so many children,
  Her uterus fell right out."
Reply to
Rich The Newsgroup Wacko

You brought the issue up. I, for one, was willing to leave it lie.

--
  Keith
Reply to
keith

That's why you kill-file anyone who disagrees with you, while polluting this group with hundreds (google counts 8780 with author= rich*) you don't have to see your silly face in a mirror. What a frrappin' maroon!

--
  Keith
Reply to
keith

So your point is:

a) Lead batteries should be highly regulated

b) Since lead batteries are the worst lead offenders by an order of magnitude, all other lead regulation is pointless

c) Something else

Note, I'm not supporting or denigrating any point.

Reply to
Bryan Hackney

[...]

Or if you want to sell into (what was to have been) the EU, maybe this is topical.

Reply to
Bryan Hackney

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Well, I make that one more reason to vote "NO" on the European constitution today... Thanks for pointing that out.

Rob

Reply to
Rob Turk

John Popelish schrieb:

All exceptions are potentially limited in time. They are for products or materials for which /currently/ no realistic substitutes are available. Another example: Cadmium in NiCd cells of electric hand tools. As soon as technologically possible, these exceptions will probably be dropped from the list.

--
Dipl.-Ing. Tilmann Reh
http://www.autometer.de - Elektronik nach Maß.
Reply to
Tilmann Reh

list.

That certainly seems to apply to the more inexplicable exceptions (lead is allowed in servers, storage devices, and network infrastructure devices).

It also seems, as far as I can see, that exceptions are granted where there is scientific or technical reasons not to use the substitute, or where the substitute is more harmful to the environment and/or people.

There is also a mention of spare parts and repairs - does this mean suppliers can continue to produce and supply lead-containing electronics as spare parts?

Reply to
David Brown

Yes, a deposit on them, say $400. You pay it once, and redeem it by handing in the old battery. Like we used to do with bottles in the 60s.

Not pointless, just less cost effective, and as people keep pointing out, damaging to an already fragile industry.

Shouldn't be too difficult to extract the lead from PCBs, if the political will is there (roast them at 300 degrees in a centrifuge?) We need to encourage recovery and re-use over dumping anyway.

Paul Burke

Reply to
Paul Burke

The alternative would be the very counterproductive/ludicrous:

"Oh, we have to dump that product now; Can't repair it as we cannot get parts anymore. Send it to the land-fill!"

..and a heap of lead that would not have otherwise been in the land-fill, gets there much earlier, because of the lead-free directive....

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

This is an entirely sensible approach, as lead-acid batteries can be very easily extracted from discarded products and recycled unlike lead in components.

Reply to
Mike Harrison

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It isn't because "they" are bureaucrats (they are, of course). Just think about how politics work (or watch a few episodes of "West Wing"). Funny stuff like this everywhere, but in the long run it'll hopefully change things for the better.

robert

Reply to
Robert Latest

This is plenty explicable. The manufacturers of this equipment claim (with some validity) that there isn't much known about the long-term stability of the lead-free stuff, and since companies and governments and whatnot rely on reliable IT infrastructure they can't run the risk of switching over to a new technology.

robert

Reply to
Robert Latest

They have been for years! Not really a change.

--
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
    PC Services
              GNU H8 & mailing list info
             For those web sites you hate
Reply to
Paul Carpenter

Hmmm. Interesting! Is there a reference to this somewhere? Currently, every customer is sending us a list of questions about this. Would "industrial" be anything "professional" e.g. professional broadcast equipment?

What is WEEE?

Reply to
Peter

Hi Peter,

Checkout the "Re: A european question : RoHS" thread (in S.E.D). Links to the directives are:

and

See Article 2 section 1 of RoHS, which refers to Annex IA of the WEEE document.

I am *so* not an expert on this.... But as I understand it, WEEE is about making sure manufacturers bear the cost of recycling products made with "hazardous" substances. For example, by providing recyling schemes, collecting the unwanted items etc.

RoHS on the other hand *prohibits* such manufacture in the first place, with some exceptions. It appears that industrial equipment is one such!

--

John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

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