RoHS Directive under review

The RoHS directive is up for revision again and on the 3d of June the members of parliament are voting for our future concerning Hazardous substances. The directive concerns bromine, chlorine, PVC, ftalates and antimony trioxide. Substances that have chemical compositions close to PCB. Paxymer gets into the debate by sending this open letter to the Members of parliament and Council representatives. 

Member of the Parliament and Council representative.
You are about to make an important decision, one that could potentially affect generations of Europeans. The Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive is up for revision and one of the more important points from my perspective is the issue of brominated flame-retardants.
My message is: There are safe and functional alternatives to halogenated additives.

Paxymer is one of the systems that prove that using bromine is not necessary to retain the present functionality in polymers and still be able to fulfil the current requirements for flame retardancy. Paxymer fulfils and goes further than the legislator demands with regard to environment and health. Paxymer’s solution with functional polymers is designed to take in the problems that rescue workers deal with every day. Paxymer is toxic free and has unique burning properties that entail very low levels of non-toxic smoke emissions, it does not drip nor soot. That means that no dioxins are emitted while burning, no re-ignition of materials to further worsen the fire situation due to drops and no soot that increases the cost of decontamination. Brominated flame-retardants causes all the effects mentioned.

Paxymer achieves these burning properties with low impact on the material properties and without affecting the process ability of the material. Paxymer uses no classified substances – no bromine, chlorine or antimony trioxide – in addition there are no handling, shipping or recycling restrictions. In many ways Paxymer solves the problem of flame retarding substances in better ways than the brominated flame-retardants and ultimately saves lives (se attached file).

I am writing you from a high-tech company in Sweden with extensive knowledge of polymeric problems. PP Polymer was founded by Dr Swaraj Paul. We have been solving polymeric problems in an environmentally conscious way since 1985. In the beginning of the 21st century on a mission from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency he formulated a directional recipe to prove that bromine was not necessary in flame-retardants. That investigation has today, 7 years later, been patented and productified in Paxymer.

I present the Paxymer system as proof that there are commercially available alternatives. Of course it is easier for an established industry to keep doing what they have been doing; innovation can be painful. Regardless, we need to innovate! Bromine is harmful for humans and environment, it also bio accumulates. This means that problems that we create will be dealt with by several coming generations. Can you afford to take the risk of increasing the bromine levels in our environment?

A prohibition and clear plan for phasing out bromine is the only way to start the process of removing it from the world we live in. Since there are alternatives that match its functionality without being toxic or unsafe: a prohibition will not affect our way of life or our safety negatively in any way, on the contrary. It is your responsibility to use the knowledge that we have available and make the best decisions possible with regard to that. Given what we know today, that decision would be to ban bromine.

For more information:
Environment and health (http://paxymer.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=41)
Effects of bromine (http://www.paxymer.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=622)
Effects of PentaBDE (http://www.paxymer.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=54)
About us (http://paxymer.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69&Itemid=50)

Thank you for your time.
Amit Paul

You can follow the development on: European unions homepage for the RoHS Recast