Executive calls on IPC to fight RoHS

In an open letter that appeared on the PCB007 website, Matthew Holzmann, president of Christopher Associates Inc., a supplier to the printed circuit industry, has called on the IPC to “take a leading role in working to replace these regulations with common sense and effective solutions.” He refers to European Union legislation such as RoHS and WEEE.

Holzmann refers to a recent article in the London Daily Telegraph in which Timothy Townsend, a professor at the University of Florida, claims that the original study upon which the RoHS regulations were based was found to be inaccurate. Townsend further insists that the risk to health and the environment was “grossly overstated.”

Holzmann’s open letter to IPC comes at a time when a number of OEM executives and industry experts are challenging the science behind the RoHS and WEEE laws. A website, Pushback, was recently launched to gather and display arguments against the scientific assumptions of recent environmental legislation such as RoHS and WEEE.

Original text is here