Welcome to the February 2018 Design Chain Associates E-mail Newsletter!

In addition to DCA's newsletters, keep an eye on DCA's bi-monthly articles in TTI's MarketEYE Resource Center.

• EU REACH Update - Enforcement and more SVHCs
• EU RoHS - More Exemption Renewal Draft Directives and a New Substance Review
• California Safer Consumer Products: Draft 2018-2020 Priority Product Work Plan
• DCA Articles & DCA In The News
• Events to Attend
• Contact and Feedback

REACH-En-Force (Ref-4), coordinated by ECHA's Enforcement Forum, aimed to identify non-compliance with restricted substances under Annex XVII.

Inspectors checked 5,625 products comprising 1,009 mixtures, 4,599 articles and 17 substances. Overall 18% of products tested were out of compliance. Read the press release and read the report.

And don't forget that Annex XVII restrictions apply to your products too! It's not just SVHCs you have to ask your suppliers about. How many REACH "declarations" do you receive that are only about SVHCs?

Last week the European Commission issued a suite of draft Delegated Directives addressing Annex III exemptions 7(c)-II, 7(c)-IV, 8(b), 15, 21, 29, 32 and 37. I wrote a short article about it on LinkedIn and summarized the proposed renewals here. The article also briefly covers a new study to support the review of the list of restricted substances and to assess a new exemption request under RoHS 2. The key goals of the study are:

• Update of the existing methodology to identify and assess substances
• Detailed assessment of seven substances: diantimony trioxide, TBBPA, indium phosphide, MCCPs, beryllium and its compounds, nickel sulphate and nickel sulfamate, cobalt dichloride and cobalt sulphate
• Determination of the quantitative usage data for a list of prioritized substances used in EEE or where this is not possible, of a magnitude ranking, with a view to a refined prioritisation for future restriction review cycles.
• Update of the existing methodology for the decision on exemption applications pursuant - and writing guidance that addresses negative vs. positive environmental impact
• Evaluating an exemption request for the use of cadmium in luminescent material for on-chip application on LED semiconductor chips

February 17, 2018 LinkedIn: Some Long-Awaited Resolution for EU RoHS Exemptions and a New Substance Restriction Review. This article summarizes several draft delegated directives proposing to amend Annex III of RoHS to renew certain exemptions as well as information about a new substance restriction review.

February 15, 2018 ChemicalWatch: UAE's RoHS-like regulation causing 'mass confusion'. UAE ESMA fails to clarify what they need and fails to put in place the infrastructure necessary to implement it in time to meet the regulation's in-force date of Jan. 1, 2018.

February 26-27, 2018: San Francisco, CA. ChemicalWatch's AsiaHub Summit USA. Mike will present two recent case studies of compliance failures, and what you can do to make sure your company is not the next one.

May 14-16, 2018: San Jose, CA. 2018 IEEE Symposium on Product Safety Engineering. Mike will discuss the relationship between Product Safety Engineering and Product Environmental/Human Health Safety and Compliance.

June 18-20, 2018: Portland, OR. ACS Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference. Mike co-chairs a session on the semiconductor and electronics industries. This will be an extremely interesting session - make plans to come to Portland now!! Details coming next month!

We value your feedback and insights on the topics in this newsletter and anything else we're involved with. You can contact us at the number below, or simply reply to this e-mail.