ELV compliance management can be a time-consuming and confusing issue for those involved with automotive mechanical engineering, or who make embedded firmware for the automotive industry. However, a recently added annex to the ELV directive has made environmental compliance management just a little easier for the automotive engineering industry.
The ELV directive was introduced to address the impact that dismantled end of life vehicles have on the environment, with regard to toxic waste reaching landfill sites. It was issued in line with the WEEE/RoHS directives, and among other things placed strict limits on the levels of lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium to be used in the design and manufacture of motor vehicles and their components.
This made things extremely difficult for many automotive design engineers, who found the new rules unfeasible for certain system designs and engineering applications. Evidently, the message reached the right people, because on March 30, 2011, Annex II of the ELV directive was unveiled. This is a list of ELV exemptions, which acknowledges the fact that the use of the four heavy metals mentioned above is technically unavoidable for certain components and materials.
The new exemptions make regular data cleaning an essential part of your environmental compliance management strategy, as the exemptions are periodically reviewed to see if they are still warranted, in a process known as ATP, or Adaptation to Technical Progress.
We at Enventure Technologies offer targeted environmental compliance solutions for the automotive engineering industry, ensuring you are always up-to-date with the latest WEEE, RoHS and ELV compliance changes.
