Decoding China RoHS

China is making progress toward promotion of its version of the European Union's Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances directive, which will take effect March 1.

China's RoHS, officially known as The Administration on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Industry, is expected to be implemented through the development of nine standards. Those standards will cover issues involving product design, development, manufacturing and the sale of products.

Since China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) plans to use those standards as an effective means of regulating the ways companies try to meet legislation requirements, they have to be detailed and can be used as guidebooks for Chinese electronics manufacturers, officials said.

To formulate those standards, the MII set up a working group with the support of the China Electronics Standardization Institute under the MII in October 2004. The group has successfully developed three standards, in marking, limits and testing methods. The MII also announced that the remaining six standards will be released soon with a clear timeline. The six will include standards for lead-free soldering material standards and the general rule for an environmental protection-use period.

Here's information about the three developed standards:

Marking standard: specifies the marking of hazardous substances contained in electronics information products, recycling and the name of package material.

Limit value standard: details the maximum concentration limit for certain hazardous substances contained in electronics information products.

Testing methods of hazardous substances standard: specifies the testing methods to the six hazardous materials (Pb, Cd, Cr, Hg, PBBs and PBDEs) contained in electronics information products.

Once China's RoHS takes effect as expected March 1, manufacturers would be expected to label all electronics products to be sold in the country with the hazardous substances contained in their production. In the second step, China aims to push all manufacturers to use environmentally friendly materials in their production and follow the catalog management. At that stage, 3C certification would be required before products listed in the catalog could be imported or sold into China.

Apparently, China's RoHS is not going to be implemented in a one-step approach, like the EU's RoHS directive. Instead, it will be a gradual process, according to Chinese government officials.

Jianzhou Huang, director at the Economic Operations Bureau of China's Ministry of Information Industry, noted that a catalog management approach fits China's situation more because this would give China's manufacturers adequate time to develop and explore new materials for production while gradually reducing the use of hazardous materials.

The initiative of formulating China's RoHS is not only to actively respond to the EU's RoHS directive but also to manage all electronics pollution controls under legislation, he said. "We want to use legislation and standards to manage our electronics manufacturing process," Huang added.

As for the catalog, it's still being prepared. "We will decide which products will be in the catalog later," said Huang.

Huang has been working on China RoHS formulation since early 2002. He noted that China RoHS will apply to electronics manufactured in China for sale domestically, as well as goods imported into China. It does not apply to electronics made in China for export or to military electronics and software products.

--Amy Wang