Through an outstanding network in Brussels, Germany, US and elsewhere, Dometic keeps itself up-dated about actual and future legislation. Dometic also participate actively in the work of trade associations, standardization bodies and the European Community working groups. The information and content is regularly brought to the attention of the Management Group, production units and sales companies.
Following are examples of legislation and international agreements that affect Dometic business currently:
- End-of-life Vehicle Directive - ELV
- Restriction of certain Hazardous Substances - RoHS
- Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment - WEEE
- Framework Directive on Energy Using Products - EUP
- Regulation on the Registration Evaluation Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals - REACH
- Biocide Directive
- Fluorinated Greenhouse gases regulation - HFC
- European and International convention on Marine legislation
- International chemical legislation
Waste
Proper dismantling of the refrigerator is necessary at end-of-life, in order to allow a high proportion of re-use or recycling of the material which is used in our products as well as to facilitate the safe disposal of the remaining components that cannot be recycled. Already in 1990’s, a recycling equipment was developed by Dometic Siegen in order to promote and reinforce the recycling of absorption refrigerators. This equipment was further developed by Dometic in the early 2000 in order to adapt to current recycling practices and legislation. This new equipment is up and running at two different locations in Germany and discussions to build further mobile equipment is under way.
WEEE
The products being used today will reach their end-of-life in 10 to 20 years. Existing and future legislation requires producers to take a larger responsibility for their own products at end-of-life. The European Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (2002/96/EC) proposes producer responsibility, which means mandatory financing of collection, treatment and disposal of end-of-life products. In order to meet the requirements of the WEEE Directive, Dometic take part of the work on National level an European level, recycling manuals have been prepared for a number of products or information about recycling has been inserted in the instruction manual.
RoHS
To comply with the Directive on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (2002/95/EC) all factories at Dometic have been deeply involved to phase out any hazardous materials according to RoHS from the products covered by the directive. All supplier to products affected by RoHS have been asked to complete and sign a self-declaration form. For some components specific tests have been carried out to detect any potential content of cadmium, lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, PBB or PBDE. Some of the components have required technical evaluation or performance testing before they could be used in the Dometic products. This has typically included standardised corrosion test for components with modified corrosion protection (substitution of hexavalent chromium), or testing of mechanical strength for electronic parts with lead free soldering.