Environmental regulations are becoming an increasingly important factor in production, distribution, and disposal of goods in the United States and abroad. Please view our free, abbreviated online version of CITRA's Handbook on European Environmental Initiatives.

Recently, the two European Union Directives regulating the use of hazardous substances (in the production) and disposal of electronic equipment have come into force (July 2006 and August 2005 respectively). These directives are known under the acronyms RoHS (Council Directive 2002/95/EC: Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Council Directive 2002/96/EC: Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment).

While both directives apply to similar sets of products, there are differences in exemption status and national enforcement. Since the requirebnments depend strongly on your EU target market and product, contact us for a personal consultation.

The European Union has adopted Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH). The regulation will take effect on June 1, 2007. Are you ready? Read our white paper.

On March 1, 2007 China RoHS, came into force. All products sold or imported into China must be in compliance with the new law. China RoHs requires that products sold to end users are to be accurately marked and, in addition, if any part or component contains any of the hazardous substances that fall under China RoHS’ scope then the product needs to be shipped with a document that contains written information about the product’s substances.