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EC Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS)

The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive aims to minimise the environmental impact of waste electrical and electronic equipment by reducing the quantities of four heavy metals and two brominated flame retardants that it may contain.

Products placed on the EU market on or after 1 July 2006 may not contain more than the specified limits of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE).

The Directive applies primarily to those who manufacture Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE), those who import these goods into the EU; those who export these goods to other Member States; and those who re-brand equipment that has been produced by others.

The RoHS Directive draws its scope from the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and applies to categories 1-7 and 10 that are listed under Annex 1A of the WEEE Directive, with the addition of electric light bulbs (lamps) and household luminaires. The eight categories are:

1. Large household appliances
2. Small household appliances
3. IT & telecommunications equipment
4. Consumer equipment
5. Lighting equipment
6. Electrical & electronic tools
7. Toys, leisure & sports equipment
8. Automatic Dispensers

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is the lead UK Government Department for the RoHS Directive being responsible for both the EU negotiations and UK implementation.

Index

1. Latest Information
2. Documents
3. Contacts

1. Latest Information

This section summarises key recent developments. More details and links to documents are provided in sections below.

June 2009

• Commission Decisions 2009/428/EC and 2009/443/EC are published amending the Annex to the RoHS Directive with the inclusion of six new exemptions and providing for an expiry date of 31 December 2009 for one existing exemption. These Decisions can be found under the Documents links below.

• New updated RoHS Government Guidance Notes have been issued to include these changes. These can be downloaded from the ‘RoHS in the UK’ page on this site.
  

April 2009

• BERR publishes a consultation on the European Commission proposals to recast the EC Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS). The closing date for responses is 13 May 2009.
  Government consultation on European Commission proposals to recast the EC Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) (122KB)

• A TAC meeting was held in Brussels on 7 April 2009. The UK’s unofficial meeting notes of that meeting can be found on the ‘RoHS in the EU’ page of this website.
  

March 2009

• Amendments to the UK Regulations were made. Statutory Instrument 2009 No. 581 was laid before Parliament on 11 March and came into force on 6 April 2009. A copy of the Regulations can be downloaded from the OPSI website
  http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/pdf/uksi_20090581_en.pdf

December 2008

• The European Commission published proposals to revise the RoHS Directive. These can be downloaded from http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/index_en.htm
  

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2. Documents

1. EC RoHS Directive
   
   RoHS EC Directive 2002/95/EC (115KB)
2. Commission Decision on the Maximum Concentration Values
   
   Maximum concentration values - EU Commission Decision (31KB)
3. First Commission Decision on Exemptions - 13 October 2005
   
   RoHS Exemption deca-BDE October 2005 (2005/717/EC) (36KB)
4. Second Commission Decision on Exemptions - 21 October 2005
   Commission Decision adopting 'first batch' of exemptions (35KB)
5. Third Commission Decision on Exemptions - 21 April 2006
   Third Exemptions Decision - 21 April 2006 (35KB)
6. Fourth Commission Decision on Exemptions - 12 October 2006.
   
   RoHS Commission Exemption Decision October 2006 (2006/690/EC) (31KB)
7. Fifth Commission Decision on Exemptions – 12 October 2006
   
   RoHS Commission Exemption Decision (2006/691/EC) (34KB)
8. Sixth Commission Decision on Exemptions – 12 October 2006
   
   RoHS Commission Exemption Decision October 2006 (2006/692/EC) (32KB)
9. Seventh Commission Decision on Exemptions - 24 January 2008.
   
   RoHS Commission Exemption Decision (2008/385/EC) (32KB)
10. Eighth Commission Decision on Exemptions – 4 June 2009
    
11. Ninth Commission Decision on Exemptions – 10 June 2009
    
12. EC WEEE Directive
    
    WEEE EU Directive 2002/96/EU (287KB)
13. Final regulatory impact assessment on the UK RoHS Regulations, last updated September 2005
    Full regulatory impact assessment (RIA) for DTI regulations transposing directive 2002/95/EC of European Parliament and Council - RoHS directive (75KB)
    
    

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3. Contacts

For further information about the RoHS Directive please contact:

sustainability@bis.gsi.gov.uk