It is a sad reflection when we see the term "only the courts can decide",
and I understand it isn't you Nick so do not take this personally.

Would it not be possible to frame these "laws" in a SMARTER fashion,
unambiguous, concise etc. So for instance the ban on Cadmium would be
phrased as for instance "Cadmium and it's compounds except for the purposes
of plating on electrical contacts".?

Do we really have to look forward to a plethora of law suits, or is this
legislation designed to turn the European lawmaking machine into a self
perpetuating profit center??

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Jolly Nick (Mr N) [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 7:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LF] RoHS Directive - cadmium in electrical contacts


Gordon

Within the various directives, Cd plating means any deposit or coating of
metallic cadmium on a metallic surface and UK will use this definition for
our regulations.

Although allowed for electrical contacts, it won't be allowed for anything
else eg. corrosion protection in the listed product categories.

Your point about the use of Cadmium oxide is interesting though which I'll
follow up.

Regarding the other points, I hope I'd made it clear that I was commenting
on how UK is likely to interpret the directives in our national legislation.
As I've said before in previous postings, only the courts can make decisions
as to whether this is right or not.


Regards

Nick


-----Original Message-----
From: Davy, Gordon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 23 June 2004 13:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LF] RoHS Directive - cadmium in electrical contacts


Nick Jolly of the UK Department of Trade and Industry has replied to my
comments about cadmium in the RoHS Directive. He writes "The RoHS directive
exempts Cadmium plating unless it's banned under the Dangerous Substances
Directive.  As cadmium plating on electrical contacts is not banned under
that, it's not banned under RoHS.  I believe that what RoHS is trying to
prevent is the use of Cadmium in pigments."

The Dangerous Substances Directive actually does have some prohibitions on
cadmium plating, as used in equipment for certain industries, but we can
hope that the enforcers don't interpret this prohibition as applying to
electrical and electronic equipment used by those industries. It's too bad
that the legislators, who are being paid, I guess, to further the good of
those who elected them to office, seem to have such difficulty saying what
they mean - in spite of all their "whereas"es.

In fact, I don't think that RoHS is clear about batteries, either. By the
definition of Article 3, a battery is electrical equipment, since it is
"equipment for the generation [of electric currents]... designed for use
with a voltage rating not exceeding ... 1500 volts for direct current".
"Whereas" number 9 of the preamble does mention the battery directive.
However, the preamble is not a good place to put requirements, "should" is
not "shall", and what is the intent of stating that RoHS applies - or should
apply - to the battery directive? It looks to me as if RoHS could just as
easily be interpreted as amending that directive, rather than the other way
around. If the legislators wanted to exempt batteries, they could have just
mentioned batteries in the Annex, but maybe it didn't occur to them or they
forgot.

(As for Mr. Jolly's assurances about consumables being outside the scope of
the directives, I hope he's right. However, I couldn't find the word in the
Scope article (which has only three sentences), or for that matter anywhere
else in the RoHS directive. Maybe one has to know what to look for, or maybe
he has access to information beyond what's available to me. In any case, I'm
more concerned in this posting with cadmium.)

Maybe the legislators need to hire some more assistants - or more-informed
ones, as also suggested by John Burke. They may not know that cadmium in
electrical contacts is not cadmium plating, nor is it used, as plating is,
to prevent corrosion. In contacts it is alloyed with silver, or is present
as the oxide, and is used to promote quenching of the arc that develops when
the contacts close or open, and to prevent the contacts from welding
together. See for example
http://www.deringer.com/contacts/materials/silvercad.html
<http://www.deringer.com/contacts/materials/silvercad.html> . The
legislators may not know about this separate use for cadmium, but some of
the envirocops who work for them might find out.

So my comment still stands: unless someone speaks for the Commission with a
statement that is legally binding for all of the EU, since cadmium in
electrical contacts is not exempted by RoHS it is not allowed, our guesses
as to the legislators' intentions notwithstanding. The UK's draft
regulations and guidance will be of interest, but unless all the other
countries' regulations match, they won't be able to remove the exposure to
an adverse interpretation that manufacturers of electrical and electronic
equipment face if they want to sell in all of Europe.

So much for the requirement, what about the consequences? I'm not an expert
on electrical contacts, so I don't know how difficult it will be for
manufacturers to switch to a cadmium-free version, but I assume that for
some applications getting by without cadmium in the contacts is going to be
a problem. For those applications, the manufacturers will get to sell
more-expensive equipment, or sell replacement equipment sooner, which may be
good for them, but won't be for their customers, nor for those who worry
about sustainability. More equipment means more mining, more energy usage,
and more WEEE.

It bears repeating that the RoHS and WEEE directives seem to have been
passed into law without any kind of cost-benefit analysis, or even,
ironically, an environmental impact statement. (The driving force for
passage seems to have been environmental activist dogma, not analysis - an
example of the resurgence of superstition we are seeing in our time.) It's
hard to see how a useful environmental impact statement could have been
prepared when the extent of the legislation and what industries are covered
aren't even clear. Certainly such a document has never been made public. As
for a cost-benefit analysis, we'll all know the costs in a few years, but
the benefits will be hard to document without someone demonstrating cases of
suffering today due to previous lack of restrictions.

Perhaps Karl Heinz Zuber, who has let us know that he is environmentally
sensitive and aware, and who seems to like RoHS, has some insight here as to
how this privation is good for human health and the environment. Maybe he
can tell us how many Europeans are getting poisoned by cadmium due to its
use in electrical contacts (or even a number of poisonings for all
electrical and electronic uses combined). My estimate remains at zero per
year for a simple reason: the environmental activists would assuredly have
told us of any cases they knew about.

Gordon Davy
Baltimore, MD
[log in to unmask]
410-993-7399

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