EU lead-free directive

Of course, as part of the fee, you'd demonstrate the 'instrument'?

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

Rob

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

They have been for years! Not really a change.

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?

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!