WOW,

Did you notice the part in any other business (first item) , where the WEEE
symbol as generated by Cenelec conflicts with the directive.............

Ooooooooooops,

John


-----Original Message-----
From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Davy, Gordon
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 2:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LF] Report of 19 April meeting of Technical Adaptation
Committee


The UK Department of Trade and Industry has just posted an unofficial
report (4 pages) of the latest meeting of the European Commission's
Technical Adaptation Committee at
http://www.dti.gov.uk/sustainability/weee/TAC_Unofficial_Note_April05.pd
f. Most of the report deals with WEEE, but there is some info on RoHS as
well.

There we learn of a request for an exemption for lead crystal in the
glass of chandeliers. I think that's going to be a hard sell, not
because it causes lead poisoning, but because this use of lead is
non-essential - there are Pb-free substitutes that provide the same
function. I suppose if there were enough people who really wanted lead
crystal for a chandelier it could be sold by itself, but to avoid its
being covered by RoHS it would have to be marketed as having some other
function (e.g., room decoration) so it wouldn't look like a part of
electrical or electronic equipment.

There also we learn that the European Commission proposed and the TAC
agreed, "that, funds allowing, it would now seek to appoint a technical
expert on an ongoing service contract who would assist the TAC by
reviewing completed exemption checklists and any supporting technical
information submitted by companies." Note that most members of the TAC
are not technical, in the sense we take it to mean (trained in a
physical science or engineering). Note also that the names of the
members of the TAC are never reported, and that if it weren't for the
unofficial reports provided by the DTI, we'd be deprived of virtually
all useful insight into the strange goings-on by people who receive
paychecks from European taxpayers, supposedly acting on their behalf.

The proposal to exempt deca-BDE flame retardant received a majority
vote, but not a big enough majority for it to take effect automatically.
The minority wanted to postpone the exemption until further data become
available (there are never enough data to convince people who have
already contrarily made up their minds). This in spite of the fact that
EU risk assessment was closed last year, concluding that there is no
evidence of any risks that need to be managed by legislative
restrictions. Because the majority was not big enough to be "qualified",
the draft decision must be submitted for consideration by the
Environment Council and European Parliament, "a process that could take
up to three months." Don't hold your breath, particularly considering
the EP's expressed dissatisfaction with EC decisions for not being
"green" enough.



Gordon Davy
Baltimore, MD
[log in to unmask]

410-993-7399




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