The electronic industry in Europe faces great changes owing to the RoHS and WEEE directives that the EC has adopted. The directives affect the entire electronic industry.

RoHS-directive (Restriction of Hazardous Substances)

The purpose of RoHS is to limit certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic products. The substances are:

• Lead
• Cadmium
• Chromium (hexavalent)
• Mercury
• PBB
• PBDE

The RoHS directive comes into force on 1 juli, 2006. Consequently, manufacturers are required to reduce their usage of the six hazardous substances to acceptable levels before that date.

WEEE-directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment)

The directive came into force on August 13th 2005 and involves a producer responsibility for those who according to the directive are producers. A producer shall contribute to the financing and bear responsibility that there is a fully functioning collection system for its spent products. Electronic waste shall be collected separately and therefore be marked with a crossed out wheeled bin as showed above. The symbol can be found on all Westermo products.

Westermo’s RoHS compliant products

For Westermo, it is primary the ban of lead that will require modifications, since led is one of the main ingredients of solder point, surface on PCB and exist as alloy in components.

This means that a product before the 1st of July 2006 traditionally is manufactured with material consisting lead. After 1 July 2006 it is forbidden to use lead or any of the other restricted substances outside the permitted values.

Since the autumn of 2004, Westermo’s project group has been working with issues concerning the requirements set out in the RoHS and WEEE directives as well as the consequences that these will have on our product development.

Westermo’s customers can rest assured that a RoHS compliant product from Westermo will satisfy the EC’s RoHS and WEEE directive.

Read more how RoHS & WEEE affects Westermo >>