With the EU's law banning toxic substances in electrical and electronics products coming into force on Saturday, local manufacturers are ready to comply with the rule and secure their markets, a government official said yesterday.
"After over a year of efforts to assist small and medium-sized manufacturers, they are now all prepared for the rule," said Lin Yu-fen (
Starting on July 1, the EU will implement the Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive that limits six substances -- lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium and polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) -- that would pose risks to health or the environment from electrical and electronic devices sold in the region.
Products that are found to violate the directive will be removed from the shelves immediately with the producers being fined depending on regulations of different countries.
Taiwanese companies exported NT$233.4 billion (US$7.15 billion) in products covered by the RoHS Directive to the EU last year, according to the bureau's statistics.
Companies seeking to keep their products on shelves in the EU or continue to be suppliers of major electronics vendors need to look for alternative substitutes for the six banned substances, redesign some products and upgrade manufacturing equipment and technologies.
Lin said that finding feasible replacement substances was not difficult, but that some of the key manufacturing equipment and technologies have been patented by international electronics giants such as Sony Corp, and therefore local companies have to pay to obtain the patent items.
The extra costs may be passed on and hike retail prices, though vendors refused to elaborate on the pricing of the environmentally friendly products.
By the end of last month, all public companies exporting their goods to the EU, including the top 60 exporters to the region, as well as their 5,000-strong suppliers were already, or prepared to ship RoHS-compliant products, Lin said, adding that the bureau has spent about NT$100 million in the project.
To help resource-poor small and medium sized manufacturers comply with the rule, the Ministry of Economic Affairs in May last year set up a service team consisting of related government departments, industry associations such as the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association (電電公會), and large electronics makers including Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) and Acer Inc.
Lin noted that many companies will still run their original production lines producing non RoHS-complaint products for other markets, as the manufacturing costs for the green products are higher.
But the traditional manufacturing will be gradually eliminated and replaced by green supply chains amid a rise in environmental awareness all over the world, he said. China, for instance, will implement regulations similar to RoHS in March next year, while Japan has also announced new environmental rules, he said.
Taiwan is also in the process of developing laws to regulate hazardous substances.
The Department of Health is considering combining the current Waste Disposal
Act (廢棄物清理法) and Resource Recycling and Reuse Act (資源回收再利用法)
and adding regulations banning substances that would threaten health and
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