China RoHS – A Conformity Assessment System is Finally (Partially) Defined
On May 17, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the new State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) finally defined the long-awaited Conformity Assessment System for Electrical and Electronic Products (EEPs).
Along with new labels, two approaches are defined: voluntary certification and self-declaration.
Voluntary certification takes cues from the original voluntary certification program implemented in 2011. (Did anyone ever actually certify any products to that program?) This requires a third-party certifier (unidentified at the moment) and seems dependent on testing to one degree or another.
MIIT and SAMR are going to identify or create the certifier(s), and the certifier(s) must then define the certification requirements. One would expect at least the identification of the certifier(s) to happen very soon. The actual, defined requirement for certification is, at least publicly, an unknown.
Ultimately, the certifier is responsible for submitting the test, along with other evidence of compliance that demonstrate the EEP meets these as-yet undefined certification requirements, to a “public service platform.” More on that below.
Self-declaration requires the producer (or their authorized representative, if the manufacturer/producer is not a legal entity in China) to submit a “declaration of conformity” to the public service platform in order to gain certification, supported by technical documents that demonstrate compliance.
These technical support documents must contain either a product inspection report from a test lab (either in-house or third party) or data provided by suppliers of all the components and materials that comprise the EEP.
This sounds similar to what is described in IEC 63000, but that standard is, unfortunately, not referenced; nor is its Chinese implementation, GB/T 36560-2018. Consistency with IEC 63000 or GB/T 36560 would allow use of (hopefully pre-existing) technical documents compiled to demonstrate compliance with EU RoHS.
Both approaches require data to be submitted to a “public service platform.” This is expected to be China’s Green Product platform, for which Measures for Usage and Administration were introduced in May and came into force on June 1. While the data to be submitted would tend to contain proprietary and confidential information, the data that will actually be made available to the public is unclear; Article 8 of the green product management methods indicates that all certification information will be published, but the Annexes describing the voluntary certification and self-declaration processes do not explicitly state that.
For products in the first catalog of EEPs, the date of compliance is now November 1, 2019. Remember that this catalog contains ONLY the following EEPs:
- Refrigerators
- Air conditioners
- Washing machines
- Water heaters
- Printers
- Copiers
- Fax machines
- TV sets
- Monitors
- Microcomputers
- Cell phones
- Telephones
English translations of the announcement, the two certification approaches and the Measures for Usage and Administration of Green Product Labeling are now available for purchase on DCA’s China RoHS website.
Stay tuned for more!
National Academies Report on OHFRs
In September 2017, the Consumer Product Safety Commission accepted a petition to restrict the use of additive organohalogen flame retardants (OHFRs, i.e. those with bromine or chlorine content) in the enclosures of electronic products.
The basis for this petition was that the entire class of OHFRs is toxic; thus, in order to avoid a “regrettable substitution” that would simply have to be replaced in the future, the entire class should be banned. A year ago, the National Academies of Science (NAS) was tasked to determine whether this class-based approach could be used in a defensible manner.
Last month, the NAS published a report on their findings: “A Class Approach to Hazard Assessment of Organohalogen Flame Retardants.” Indeed, they found that the class-based approach is applicable, but perhaps not as the petitioners had envisioned:
“O[H]FRs have several characteristics that could define them as a single class, including some physicochemical properties, their use as flame retardants, or generation of specific combustion byproducts. Those characteristics could define them as a single class for some decision contexts but are not entirely workable for conducting a hazard or risk assessment under the CPSC regulations.”
Despite that, the committee concluded that “it is scientifically justifiable to assess O[H]FRs by using a class approach and that extrapolation of hazard from subclass members on which there are some data to other members on which there are no data is appropriate and likely necessary to address data deficiencies.”
So, rather than being able to treat all additive OHFRs as a single class, the committee identified fourteen subclasses for evaluation. The report says, “The next steps in completing class-based hazard assessments of the O[H]FR subclasses will involve literature surveys and data-mapping for relevant toxicity end points. That process will likely require months for a research team to complete.”
Therefore, the entire process could take years. This is, however, viewed as a validation that the class concept can be used in the United States, and perhaps in other regulatory jurisdictions, as an alternative to the very tedious and lengthy process of restricting one chemical substance at a time.
Undeterred by the need to research and study excessive details, the European Commission (as noted in my previous column) is pushing ahead with a straight-out ban on (organo)halogenated flame retardants in enclosures of monitors, televisions, and displays. The justification? Achieving a Circular Economy.
While this decision is indirectly based on toxicity issues, there is no market in the EU for recycled plastic containing OHFRs because nobody wants to have to test for the already restricted PBDEs or risk incorporating toxic chemicals into other products made from recycled plastic. Circularity is defeated when the next step for an otherwise recyclable material like thermoplastics is the incinerator, as would be the case for plastic enclosures containing OHFRs.
Bottom line: Manufacturers throughout the supply chain must be aware of the class concept when replacing restricted substances in order to avoid regrettable substitutions, and must thoroughly study potential alternatives (including discussions with upstream and downstream stakeholders) before moving forward with a solution.
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