RoHS
directive of the European Union
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS 1), short for Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, was adopted in February 2003 by the European Union.
The initiative was to limit the amount of hazardous chemicals in electronics.
The RoHS 1 directive took effect on 1 July 2006, and is required to be enforced and became a law in each member state. The directive restricts (with exceptions) the use of ten hazardous materials in the manufacture of various electronic and electrical equipment. In addition to the exceptions, there are exclusions for products such as solar panels. It is closely linked with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) 2002/96/EC (now superseded) which sets collection, recycling, and reclamation goals for electrical goods and is part of a legislative initiative to solve the problem of huge amounts of toxic electronic waste. In speech, RoHS is often spelled out, or pronounced , , , or , and refers to the EU standard, unless otherwise qualified.
Details
Each European Union member state will adopt its own enforcement and implementation policies using the directive as a guide.
RoHS is often referred to as the "lead-free directive", but it restricts the use of the following ten substances:
Lead (Pb)
Mercury (Hg)
Cadmium (Cd)
Hexavalent chromium (Cr6+)
Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB)
Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)
Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP)
Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP)
Dibutyl phthalate (DBP)
Diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP)
Maximum Permitted Concentration: 0.1%
Max for Cadmium: 0.01%
DEHP, BBP, DBP and DIBP were added as part of DIRECTIVE (EU) 2015/863 which was published on 31 March 2015.
PBB and PBDE are flame retardants used in several plastics.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “RoHS” as directive of the European Union. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as directive of the European Union. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q740504. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2015.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “RoHS” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.