Scope

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive, commonly referred to as WEEE.  This is aimed at electrical and electronic equipment manufacturers and has two main aims:

1. Manufacturers will also have a responsibility for recycling products at the end of their life and there are targets manufacturers must meet. 

2. To eliminate the use of environmentally sensitive substances from the manufacturing process of electrical and electronic equipment.  To do this, the WEEE directive refers to the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive.

The main objective of the R0HS directive is to eliminate the use of four metals and 2 flame retardants - For each of these substances a maximum concentration value of 0.1% by weight in electrical and electronic equipment is permissible:

• Lead
• Mercury
• Cadmium
• Hexavalent Chromium
• Polybrominated Diphenyls
• Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers

In addition, there is an extra clause covering the exceptions which includes Lead, when used as an alloying element where the maximum concentration values are:

• 0.35% by weight in Steels (including Stainless Steel)
• 0.40% by weight in Aluminium
• 4.00% by weight in Copper alloys

Statement

Our suppliers have confirmed that we do not have a problem in supplying material that fully conforms to the RoHS directive and as a Company we can thus make the following statement:  

We can confirm that the levels of:
Lead
Cadmium
Mercury
Hexavalent Chromium
Polybrominated Biphenyl (PBB)
Polybrominated Diphenyl Ether (PBDE)
are all below the maximum permissible levels stipulated in the European Directive 2011/65/CE (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), for all materials supplied by us.

The only exception to this is where a customer orders a grade of material where the British, European or International Standard covering that grade requires the level of one or more of the substances to be in excess of the RoHS Directive.  In this case, the material will contain a value of each substance in line with the requirements of the standard.