The Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive
The European Parliament passed the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive in 2004 to "protect human health and the environment by restricting the use of certain hazardous substances in new equipment" and to complement the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Producer Responsibility) Regulations ("the WEEE Regulations"). It covers the same scope of equipment as the WEEE regulations, except that Category 8, Medical Devices, and Category 9, Monitoring and Control Instruments, are excluded from the RoHS directive.
Products from ORTEC fall under Category 9 of the RoHS directive and so are exempted. We recognize, however, that in general removal of hazardous substances from our products benefits not only the environment but also our customers and employees. We are therefore working towards producing products which are fully RoHS compliant wherever possible . Initially work is focused on new products in development, but we are also taking the opportunity when updating existing instruments to use RoHS compliant components and techniques.
ORTEC instruments may be used in applications which of themselves may affect requirements for RoHS compliance of the ORTEC component instruments. In most cases, customers do NOT require RoHS compliant ORTEC products, even when embedded within their own products because the end product itself is classified as either Category 8 or Category 9 above. An ORTEC product will require RoHS compliance only if a customer sells an end product that itself falls within the RoHS directive's scope. If you are one of these customers then please contact us for further advice.