Sweden finds prohibited substances present in about 40% low price electronics products

During 2016, Swedish Chemicals Agency (Kemi) has found 38% of low-price electrical and electronic products contain high levels of prohibited substances in an enforcement act (Enforcement Report).

There are 154 electrical and electronic low price products inspected from 84 companies in the act, covering USB-cables, bike lights, Christmas lights and earphones. What Kemi is looking for is lead, cadmium, certain phthalates, short chain chlorinated paraffins and brominated flame retardants in products.

Here is the briefing on prohibited substances detected:

Quantity	Violated Standard	Any lead, cadmium, certain phthalates, short chain chlorinated paraffins and brominated flame retardants?
58	RoHS Directive POPs Regulation	Most common: short chain chlorinated paraffins, lead
6	REACH Regulation	substances in the Candidate List＞0,1%/weight
19	None	Low concentrations (below the limit value)
71	None	None

The report shows high levels of lead usually result from the soldering inside several products. Several plastic parts of the products also contained plasticising phthalates. Currently, phthalates are not prohibited in electrical and electronic products. However, some of them are included in the EU’s candidate list of substances of very high concern (SVHC). It shall be noted that DEHP, DIBP, DBP and BBP (four phthalates) will be restricted in electrical and electronic products since July 2017.

Labelling Requirements

The RoHS directive requires labelling and documentation for electrical and electronic products. In the project:

64 out of the 129 products (50 percent) for which labels were checked were non-compliant.
15 out of the 35 products (43 percent) for which documentation were controlled were noncompliant.

Actions Taken:

Most companies voluntarily stopped selling their products which were found non-compliant due to the above reasons. Kemi also banned the sale of such products if some companies failed to so. They reported products containing too high concentrations of a restricted substance to Rapid Alert System for dangerous non-food products (Rapex) or Information and Communication System for market Surveillance (ICSMS).

C&K Testing’s Reminder:

Sweden randomly checks the products on the market every year and the competent department reports violations via RAPEX. Exporters shall deal with technical barriers with due care to avoid economic losses from non-compliance.

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