IPC outcry over proposed RoHS expansion
11 June 2008
News
IPC is urging all technical experts from member companies and other stakeholders in the electronics industry to participate in a special meeting on 18 June in Brussels to discuss their concerns over RoHS expansion.
Plans also call for representatives of the European Commission to attend the meeting.
In a letter sent to its members recently, IPC detailed its concerns about the draft report issued by the Öko Institute, the organisation retained by the EU Commission to study the inclusion of additional substance restrictions in the RoHS directive, and what IPC says are the institute's biased and flawed methodologies.
According to IPC, the institute went beyond the framework initially set by the EU Commission and created new criteria and categories for inclusion within the RoHS directive, proposing now that substances observed in the environment and with concerns about combustion should be prohibited under RoHS. This includes Tetra-bromobisphenol A (TBBPA), the flame retardant used to protect more than 80% of printed circuit boards and found to be safe by a European Union risk assessment. In addition to TBBPA, the institute suggests banning Hexabromocylcododecanes (HBCDD), several phthalate plasticisers, and all organic compounds containing chlorine and bromine.
IPC's letter to its membership also reveals that institute staff denied IPC permission to attend a workshop it held for discussion of the report due to the fact that only 'scientific experts were invited'. The institute's disregard of the technical expertise within IPC and its membership, coupled with its ambition to expand the scope of criteria beyond the EU Commission's original intent, is causing concern throughout the industry that scientific evidence is not driving the basis of the report.
While the institute chose to exclude some stakeholders from its meeting, IPC believes it is critical for all scientific evidence to be presented and is hopeful that its special meeting in Brussels will provide industry experts with an avenue to present their technical findings before a final decision is made by the EU Commission.
Further reading:
Personality profile: Jean Mearns
29 July 2020, WH Circuit
, News
“No one works for me, they only work with me, for without each other our team will fail to exceed the expectations of our customers.”
Read more...
Letter to the editor
29 July 2020
, News
I take exception to the article ‘To fake or not to fake’ published in the June edition of Dataweek that is clearly based on the principle ‘guilty until proven innocent’.
I am by no means an expert
...
Read more...
Q&A with Brandon Kuhn and Steve Stafford
29 July 2020
, News
Q: What is the rationale behind the reorganisation? What impact will it have on Avnet’s customers in South Africa? A (Kuhn): Since 2009, our shared front-end model in South Africa has differed from the
...
Read more...
Avnet EMEA names two new leaders to SA operation
29 July 2020
, News
Avnet has named Steve Stafford and Brandon Kuhn as new leaders in South Africa following the completion of a reorganisation in the region.
Read more...
UCT chooses Tektronix instruments for training lab
29 July 2020, Comtest
, News
Comtest, local partner to Tektronix, recently assisted the University of Cape Town (UCT) physics department in refurbishing its electrical training laboratory. All of the existing analog oscilloscopes
...
Read more...
New electromagnetic solutions range from Accutronics
29 July 2020, Accutronics
, News
Accutronics has been appointed as the reseller for the Electromagnetic Integrated Solutions (EIS) range of products from API Technologies.
APITech offers a complete line of coaxial EMI solutions,
...
Read more...
Fighting COVID-19 using TV white space spectrum
29 July 2020
, News
The CSIR has partnered with the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) to enable local Internet service providers to deploy Television White Space (TVWS) networks, using the CSIR-developed Secondary Geo-Location
...
Read more...
Clearing the Static: ESD wrist straps
29 July 2020, Actum Electronics
, News
The human body is the primary source of electrostatic charge generation. In order to control and reduce static charge build-up and prevent electrostatic discharges (ESD), we use grounding systems to ensure
...
Read more...
From the editor's desk: This too shall pass
29 July 2020, Technews Publishing
, News
Things were tough enough for the South African electronics manufacturing industry before, but this year has thrown up unprecedented challenges that nobody could have foreseen and which are outside of
...
Read more...
Electronics news digest
29 July 2020
, News
South Africa
• As part of the national data-driven approach to countering COVID-19, the CSIR has developed a platform that monitors human mobility to better understand movement patterns across specific
...
Read more...
printer friendly version