IPC in January urged the European Commission not to expand the scope of its RoHS directive. In fact, the organization went so far as say that “substance restrictions beyond RoHS would more appropriately be addressed under the current REACH [see “The devil in the acronyms”] directive to avoid unnecessary confusion and regulatory overlaps,” as Fern Abrams, director of government relations and environmental policy for the IPC, put it in a January 10 letter to the Commission.

In a February 5 posting at EDN.com, Abrams elaborates on IPC’s position, but first wonders, “Is advocating REACH over RoHS akin to dealing with the devil….Or has IPC, in advocating regulation under REACH over RoHS, failed to heed the old adage, 'better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?’”

Abrams acknowledges that REACH is big, complex, and potentially costly to implement, addressing as it does SVHCs as well as CMR, PBT, and vPvB substances. But, she writes, “perhaps there is something to be said for complexity. After all, the RoHS regulation was brief and to the point. So brief that it left many wondering what it required and how to implement it…. REACH, on the other hand, spells everything out. We may not like the process, but at least there is a process.”

She concludes, “Clearly, REACH is not a model regulation that IPC would like to see replicated. But,…substances in the REACH process will not be banned without careful consideration of the full societal impact, which is more than can be said of RoHS.”

View Abram’s EDN.com post or her January 10 letter to the European Commission.