The International Chemical Secretariat, Chemsec, has left the European Commission working group charged with updating the list of banned substances in the Restriction of Hazardous Substances directive (RoHS) in electronics. Chemsec said that it left the group due to a disagreement on whether to phase out brominated and chlorinated flame retardants and PVC (Chemsec favoured not phasing them out).
“It’s unfortunate that the working group has lost Chemsec as a member, as they have been instrumental in presenting concrete solutions to phasing out well-known hazardous substances contained in electronics” explained Emma Nolte of TCO Development, who heads the development of environmental criteria in TCO Certified.
“It’s realistic to expect legislation to reflect the reality of what’s really happening in production”, continued Nolte.
