Restriction on Hazardous Substances
Date published:
Certain substances and materials, while hazardous, are essential to manufacturing in some sectors. For businesses dealing in these materials, there is a level of necessary restriction. This article aims to inform you on those restrictions so that your business might better understand them. This article will deal specifically with restrictions against electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).
Why restriction?
In the UK, many types of EEE are regulated to control the levels of hazardous substances that they contain. In the same way that the food we eat needs to be regulated to stop us getting sick, so too does the equipment that we use. The government implements regulations with the aim of protecting human and animal health from the toxic effects of certain substances, chemicals, and materials.
What are the restrictions?
All restricted electrical products need to meet certain requirements. These requirements include:
- that all products must have supporting technical documentation (known as a technical file), which demonstrates compliance
- a necessary Declaration of Conformity (You can download a model one from the government’s website here)
- requirements that labelling be accurate and contain required information
- requirements that the appropriate conformity marking for GB and/or NI markets are visible, as appropriate.
Who’s responsible?
In the UK, manufacturers, importers, and distributors (including retailers) are all responsible for compliance with RoHS restrictions for products that they make available on the GB and NI market. Economic operators (retailers) in the UK, must be able to identify who supplied them, and who they supplied to, for 10 years following the placing on the market of a restricted good.
Further Information
You can find more information on the government website here. From this page, you can find guidance on RoHS compliance in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. You can also contact the Office for Product Safety and Standards regarding specific compliance queries.
You can find an article relating to the REACH system, which regulates hazardous chemicals specifically, here.