“General guidance on the types of products that may be outside the scope of the Regulations”

Electrical and electronic equipment that is part of another type of equipment.

The WEEE Directive excludes EEE (Electrical and Electronic Equipment) that is part of another type of equipment that does not fall within the scope of the Directive. On the basis that EEE under RoHS is defined in identical terms, it is the view of the Department and the Commission’s Legal Services that such an exclusion extends to EEE under the RoHS Directive and, consequently, to the RoHS Regulations.

Examples of such equipment would be lighting or entertainment equipment for use in vehicles, trains or aircraft. This type of equipment would be excluded as it is designed to be part of a product that falls outside the scope of the Directive.

Equipment that is part of another type of equipment or system is considered to be outside the scope of the Directive where it does not have a direct function outside the other item of equipment or system and that other item of equipment or system is itself outside the scope of the Directive.

Equipment may also be part of a fixed installation. A “fixed installation” may be a combination of several pieces of equipment, systems, products and/or components (or parts) assembled and/or erected by a professional assembler or installer at a given place to operate together in an expected environment and to perform a specific task, but not intended to be placed on the market as a single functional or commercial unit.

In such a case, the elements of a system that are not discernible EEE products in their own right or that do not have a direct function away from the installation are excluded from the scope of the Regulations.

Exemptions

16. The RoHS Regulations do not apply: -

• To large-scale stationary industrial tools. (This is a machine or system, consisting of a combination of equipment, systems, products and/or components, each of which is designed, manufactured and intended to be used only in fixed industrial applications.)
• To spare parts for the repair of EEE placed on the market before 1 July 2006. It should be noted that, following discussions in the TAC, the European Commission and Member States have agreed that this exemption extends to parts that expand the capacity of and/or upgrade EEE placed on the market before that date provided the EEE concerned is not put on the market as a new product.
• To the reuse of EEE placed on the EU market before 1 July 2006.
• To the specific applications of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBB and PBDE set out in Schedule 2 of the Regulations. These are explained in more detail in Annex C of the Guidance Note.

7.
Lead in high melting temperature type solders (i.e. lead based alloys containing 85% by weight or more lead).

8.
Lead in solders for servers, storage and storage array systems, network infrastructure equipment for switching, signalling, transmission as well as network management for telecommunication.

Scope

11. The two categories of the WEEE Directive not included within the scope of the RoHS Regulations are Medical Devices and Monitoring & Control Instruments.