STRASBOURG -- The battle between non-government organizations over the next set of RoHS rules is heating up. IPC last week took a shot at ChemSec over its advocacy for adding brominated flame retardants to the list. ChemSec today fired back, citing support from a bevy of big-name OEMs.  

In a press release, ChemSec said an alliance consisting of Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony Ericsson, plus various NGOs, is lobbying EU legislators to ban the use of all BFRs and polyvinyl chloride in electronics put on the market starting at the end of 2015.

While the current RoHS Directive restricts some heavy metals and two types of BFR, the alliance is calling for restrictions on all brominated substances as well as PVC.

The European Parliament Environment Committee will vote on the RoHS proposal on June 3. The European Parliament will consider the directive in plenary in July.

 “The supply chain can indeed provide safer substitutes for these hazardous substances,” adds ChemSec Senior Policy Advisor Nardono Nimpuno. “Our recent research report testifies to the fact that alternatives are available, cost effective and suppliers are ready to scale up their production of these alternative materials.”

In the release, the alliance asks EU to recognize the ability of these substances to generate highly hazardous dioxins and other substances of concern when these substances are incinerated at end-of-life or burned in substandard treatment sites outside the EU. "The export of e-waste is banned under EU law but much e-waste makes its way to Asia, Africa and Latin America under the guise of recycling," ChemSec asserted.

According to an IPC statement issued last week, however, ChemSec is overstating the environmental and health concerns associated with BFRs. While some BFRs, such as Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBBs), have been identified as toxic and have been withdrawn from the market, other BFRs, such as Tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBPA), have been safely used in electronics for decades, according to IPC.

The World Health Organization and the European Commission Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks conducted separate scientific assessments of TBBPA; both found TBBPA to be safe for human health and the environment, IPC noted its statement.

Furthermore, IPC argued that a ChemSec report on the harms of BFrs “does not provide indication of any environmental benefit” of removing BFRs from products,” says IPC director of environmental policy Fern Abrams. Nor does it identify alternative flame retardants and whether they are better for health and the environment, she says. 

In response, ChemSec points to hundreds of products now made without BFRs or PVC, and notes the carcinogenic effects from burning the contested materials, including the release of dioxins and furans, citing research from UMEA University that is included in a pending report from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

ChemSec is a nonprofit organization founded by four environmental groups whose stated goal is a toxic-free environment by 2020.

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