Consumer Products and Retail E-ssentials

On 4 June 2015, Directive (EU) 2015/863 [1] was published in the Official Journal of the European Union, adding four phthalates DEHP, DBP, BBP and DIBP to the list of restricted substances in Annex II of the RoHS 2 Directive 2011/65/EU. The list now contains a total of 10 substances: 4 heavy metals, 2 flame retardants and 4 phthalates.

Depending on the product category according to Annex I of the RoHS 2 Directive, there will be a transition period of 4 or 6 years. For medical devices (Category 8) and monitoring and control instruments (Category 9), there will be a transition period of 6 years with the new restrictions starting to apply from 22 July 2021. For all other products that fall within the scope of RoHS 2 (Categories 1-7, 10 and 11), the transition period is 4 years until 22 July 2019.

Toys that are already subject to the restriction of DEHP, DBP and BBP under entry 51 of Annex XVII of the REACH Regulation are exempted from the new restrictions on DHEP, DBP and BBP under the RoHS 2 Directive.

The limit for each of the four phthalates is 0.1% by weight in homogeneous materials.

Table A below lists the 4 phthalates, their limits and effective dates.