Among other issues, EuP will demand
that designers use low-power, more energy-
efficient components and assemblies,
and power-management devices. Product
designers will also have to stay on top of
the product categories that get added to the
directives as they continue to be reviewed
by EU environmental agencies.
In many cases, small incremental changes
may not be enough to meet compliance
requirements. Most recently, the EU’s Council of Ministers adopted a resolution
on the implementation of the EuP directive
and energy labeling.
U.S. ROHS LEGISLATION?
What are the chances the United States
will adopt legislation even closely comparable
to the EU’s RoHS or REACH programs?
Unlikely, at least in the near future,
according to most analysts who follow
global environmental issues.
Perhaps the closest the U.S. Congress
will come to RoHS would be to update
the nation’s 32-year-old Toxic Substances
Control Act (TSCA). The EPA’s Chemical
Assessment and Management Program
recently said it would update the TSCA
inventory of industrial chemicals to more
accurately reflect the chemicals currently
being produced and imported.
The Environmental Defense Fund has
also urged Congress to update the TSCA,
and it is pressing companies to proactively
eliminate toxic chemicals from their
products and develop safer alternatives.
“Scrutiny of these chemicals is only going to grow, so chemical companies should
support efforts to modernize the decadesold
U.S. chemicals policy that has shielded
chemicals from needed testing and appropriate
control,” says Richard A. Denison,
the EDF’s senior scientist.
For the time being, most e-waste
(including recycling) rules will continue
to be adopted at the local, regional, and
state level, with few, much less ambitious,
exceptions. In November, for example,
the Basel Action Network announced
that it will lead the development of a new
recycling certification program for North
American recyclers of e-waste called the
“e-Stewards Initiative.”
The initiative will be developed with
the Electronics TakeBack Coalition and 32
electronics recyclers. A full-blown launch
is scheduled for this year with plans for an
ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board
certification program with third-party
auditing by 2010.
On a broader and higher political level,
the U.S. House of Representatives Committee
on Energy and Commerce and its
Subcommittees on Environment and Hazardous
Materials and Oversight and Investigations
have launched an investigation
of the Environmental Protection Agency’s
(EPA) implementation and enforcement of
e-waste export regulations. The investigation
follows concerns raised by the committee
and subcommittee chairmen that
most exported e-waste is unregulated and
regulations governing the export of CRTs
aren’t being properly enforced.
One small victory for e-waste environmentalists
is a U.S. Senate bill (S.906)
known as the Mercury Export Ban, which
prevents companies from sending mercury-
tainted trash, much of it e-waste, to
developing countries. It was voted into law
by the U.S. Senate and signed by President
George W. Bush on October 18, 2008. It
amends the Toxic Substances Control Act
to prohibit the export of elemental mercury
(the pure form of mercury) from the United
States. President Barack Obama introduced
the bill when he was a member of
the Senate.