Team Nexreg

Nov. 16 – Norway to prohibit 18 hazardous substances

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Electronics Supply and Manufacturing on new regulations from Norway. The full article is an absolute must-read for anyone doing business in Norway; here are the hilights:

There are six hazardous substances that the electronics industry has been struggling to phase-out for a couple of years now: lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, and the flame retardants polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). This is per the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, which restricted the use of the substances in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) to certain maximum concentration values (MCV) in homogeneous material (0.01 % by weight for cadmium and 0.1% by weight for the other five substances).

Other jurisdictions followed or are following the European Community’s example, e.g. California (except for the flame retardants), Korea and China. Most recently, Norway created a proposal for new regulations restricting the use of not less than 18 substances in consumer goods…

Within the 18 restricted substances only two — lead and cadmium — are restricted under the EU RoHS directive. The 18 substances include:

  • Brominated flame retardants : hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD) and tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA)
  • Chlorinated paraffins
  • Arsenic (and arsenic compounds)
  • Lead (and lead compounds)
  • Cadmium (and cadmium compounds)
  • Organic tin compounds: tributyltin compounds (TBT) and triphenyltin compounds
  • Fragrance substances: musk ketone and musk xylene
  • Perfluorinated compounds
  • Surfactants: DTDMAC, DODMAC/DSDMAC and DHTDMAC
  • Bisphenol
  • Diethylhexylphtalate (DEHP)
  • Pentachlorphenol
  • Triclosan

More information is availabel in the full article.