REACH
NIKO's ambition is to minimize the impact on the environment for all our products.
On that basis NIKO closely follows all developments & requests coming from REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) regulation.
All chemical substances get registered via the European Chemicals Agency.
To date, more than 25,000 substances appear on the ECHA website. The evaluation process is designed to verify the potential impact of these chemical substances on human health and the environment. If there are serious concerns, the substance will appear on the Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) candidate list. Additional substances are added to this list every six months based on the results of scientific research.
Niko is a manufacturer and supplier of electrical and electronic accessories. Such articles may contain SVHCs but under normal conditions or even under foreseeable misuse, these substances are not expected to be released from the article.
As required by Article 33 of the REACH regulation: “any supplier of an article containing a substance meeting the criteria in Article 57 and identified in accordance with Article 59(1) in a concentration above 0,1 % weight by weight (w/w) shall provide the recipient of the article with sufficient information, available to the supplier, to allow safe use of the article including, as a minimum, the name of that substance.”
Niko takes these obligations very seriously, and strives together with its suppliers, to reduce and, where possible to avoid the use of SVHCs in its products. Nevertheless, as the list of substances on the SVHC list expands continuously, it is likely that some of these substances may be present in our articles.
The list below includes substances of very high concern SVHCs known to date which are present in certain NIKO articles in concentrations above 0.1%. For these SVHCs SCIP notifications are submitted to ECHA under the Waste Framework Directive.
RoHS
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC was first adopted in 2003 and came into force on 1 July 2006. This European Directive restricted the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment with a number of exceptions. The materials covered were lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE).
The applicability was limited to the following categories of equipment:
- Large household appliances
- Small household appliances
- IT and telecommunications equipment
- Consumer equipment
- Lighting equipment
- Electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale, stationary industrial tools)
- Toys, leisure and sports equipment
- Automatic dispensers
In 2011 the directive was replaced by the new directive 2011/65/EU whereby the applicability was extended in phases to include all electrical and electronic equipment. This new approach directive also imposes the CE marking for all applicable equipment.
In 2015 4 materials were added to the list, resulting in the following substances that are restricted (with exceptions) in electrical and electronic products:
Lead (0.1%)
Mercury (0.1%)
Cadmium (0.01%)
Hexavalent chromium (0.1%)
Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) (0.1%)
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) (0.1%)
Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) (0.1%)
Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) (0.1%)
Dibutyl phthalate (DBP) (0.1%)
Diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP) (0.1%)
All Niko products comply with the applicable RoHS directive, proof of which can be found in the EU conformity (CE) declaration. These declarations can be found on the NIKO website. Copies may also be requested via ecocompliance@niko.eu.
