The RoHS-related hazardous materials provisions will go into effect from May 12, 2013. In India, the RoHS policy is called E-Waste Rules, which came into effect in May 2012. The notification aims at the safe handling and disposal of the growing volumes of e-Waste in the country.
The new Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) legislation came into force in Europe on January 2, 2013.
There is considerable similarity between India’s regulations and the EU regulations. Batteries and radioactive waste are not dealt with under the Rules 2011, as they are already regulated by existing Indian laws. As with the EU RoHS directive, there are 39 substance exemptions.
However, there are some variances between India RoHS and the EU RoHS. The hazardous materials and limits are the same in India as EU RoHS, but encompasses a more limited scope. The EU RoHS exemptions are the same for India RoHS except that unlike the EU, exemption expiration dates are not included.
This directive first came into force across European Union in July 2006, which restricted manufacturers of eight categories of electrical and electronic equipment from manufacturing products that contain six banned substances like lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, polybrominated biphenyl flame retardants, and polybrominated diphenyl ether flame retardants.
The new legislation is called RoHS Recast 2011/65/EU. Now the policy covers items, which are dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic fields to fulfill at least one intended function. The onus of ensuring that new items comply and meet the CE obligations lies with the manufacturer, importer or distributor.
Depending on where a company sits in the supply chain, there will be obligations around the provision of many new documents, which includes a technical file and declaration of compliance. Components, which do not fall within the scope of RoHS will have to be compliant if used in the manufacture of equipment mentioned in the scope.
