When China's version of RoHS becomes active on March 1, four standards must be met:
- "Concentration Limits" of hazardous substances,
- "Marking" to indicate the presence of hazardous substances, as well as a safe-to-use period and the packaging material;
- "Testing Procedures" and;
- a "Catalogue" of products which are subject to substance restrictions and mandatory certification.
Since earlier this month, two of those standards, 'Concentration Limits' and "Marking' have been ready for approval by the Ministry of Information Industry. The maximum concentration values defined in the standard on 'Concentration Limits' will only apply to EEE listed in the yet-to-be defined Catalogue. All other products may exceed the limits.
The substances and concentration limits are identical to those of the EU's RoHS Directive. However, going beyond the EU Directive, the Chinese standard applies the limits to components which it divides into 3 groups: parts of homogenous materials to which the concentration limits apply; small items that are hard to disassemble and are treated like homogenous materials; and finally metal plate parts, in which the RoHS substances may occur if they have not been added intentionally.
The standard on 'Marking' will apply to all EEE within the scope of 'China RoHS'. The standard requires only those products to be marked that exceed the concentration limits. Additionally, the presence of hazardous substances in each component must be declared in a table in the manual.
The standard on 'Testing Procedure' is expected shortly as is the Catalogue of products.
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