ELV, RoHS, and REACH, and Prop 65 Compliance
The European Union (EU) has taken an active and progressive view in environmental considerations. In the last 20 years, they have passed scalable and comprehensive directives driving their member countries forward. The three directives that most impact industry are ELV, RoHS, and REACH.
ELV and RoHS are targeted initiatives focusing on hazardous materials in specific industries. ELV, or The End of Life Vehicle Directive, relates specifically to automobiles; RoHS, or the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, covers a broad array of mostly manufactured goods and electronic equipment. In order to be compliant, your products must be free of the following substances: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and the flame retardants polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) used in plastics.
The REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Directive, which came shortly after RLV and RoHS is the strictest law to date regulating chemical substances, and requiring the documentation, awareness and approval of the hazardous natures of all products manufactured or imported into the EU over 1 ton per year.
California’s Prop 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, requires labelling and documentation of products that may cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm – as dictated by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, which currently contains a list of over 800 chemicals.
Rotor Clip is in a unique position, given that we have manufacturing processes located in the European Union, are fulfilling orders for our European Union customers from our manufacturing location in the United States. This means that Rotor Clip maintains full compliance with ELV, RoHS, and REACH directives, and we understand how important it is for your business, as well.
The finish that affects Rotor Clip Retaining Rings under these directives is hexavalent chromium (labelled as our ZD, ZF, ZDL and HZDL coatings). In order to service our customers in the EU, Rotor Clip has introduced Trivalent Chromate with Zinc (Z3X), which is hexavalent-free and complies with RoHS and ELV directives. This compliant finish with a sealer offers 96 salt spray hours to white corrosion and 240 salt spray hours to red corrosion (Plating thickness is .0008 – .0012).
Additionally, thanks to our vertically-integrated manufacturing process, our entire lot of products is documented and traceable. We can easily, and for free, produce RoHS and REACH certifications. These can be requested at time of purchase, or up to 3 years in the past!
If you’re based in the US, we can also add Prop 65 labels and certifications for parts headed to California.
Rotor Clip takes environmental commitments seriously, and is ISO 14001 certified. This means that Rotor Clip has an enterprise-level Environmental Management System with quantifiable commitments to reducing our impact on our local and global environments.
For details on this and any other questions you may have regarding compliance with EU directives, please do not hesitate to e-mail technical sales or call us at (732) 469-7333.
Please note that substitution of our trivalent finish for hexavalent chromium is subject to issuance and acceptance of a new quotation.
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