DigitalEurope, an EU trade body, held the position that the PFOA restriction on spare parts in automobiles proposed by Committee for Socio-economic Analysis (SEAC) under ECHA should be expanded to all industries.

In September, SEAC published the opinion proposed by Germany and Norway, to restrict the manufacture, marketing and use of PFOA, its salts and PFOA-related substances, as well as of articles and mixtures containing these substances. SEAC agreed to place a restriction on PFOA on EU wide. Besides, it deemed PFOA restriction requested by automobile manufacturers from German and the European Union was reasonable.

Meanwhile, the Committee proposed a higher threshold of 25 ppb (original: 2 ppb) and a limit value of 1,000 ppm for PFOA-related substances. The transitional period will be extended to 36 months.

Although PFOA is not directly contained in electronic products, fluoropolymers are used in a wide variety of electronic applications.

ECHA will decide whether to adopt DigitalEurope’s opinion after disscussions at the meeting of early December.

The proposed PFOA restrict is probable to be passed as SEAC and RAC reach a concesus on PFOA restriction on an EU-wide level. So C&K Testing advises companies to develop plans to deal with it.