# Has the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive had any measurable positive effect \[on lead\]? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2020, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827 "2020-04-29T17:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/1 "2020-04-29T17:46:02Z")
I’m all for making products safer, but the ROHS directives, especially those prohibiting solder containing Lead, seem to be not only pointless (nobody ever comes in contact with the lead in the product), but expensive and environmentally unfriendly (the lead-free solder uses scarcer materials, requiring more mining). Since ROHS is now the standard, has there been any indication that this directive has had any effect at all? (Note that I’m not talking about the phase-out of certain refrigerants or solvent-based cleaners). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/2 "2020-04-29T17:50:49Z")
Typo in title fixed at OP’s request. Also abbreviation spelled out, and subject clarified. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/3 "2020-04-29T18:09:42Z")
Solder used in plumbing can leach into the water. Several factors involved, nothing as bad as lead pipes still in use buried in the ground who knows where, but it has eliminated some trace sources of lead. Leaded solder is still available for non-plumbing purposes. Plumbers continued to use lead solder for a long time after the ban, and I think a small amount of lead was allowed in solder for while but I haven’t found confirmation of that. But in many cases there is still plenty of lead in some water supply lines even if your house plumbing doesn’t have any. The overall effect is still difficult to measure because there is still lead in the water supply from other sources. I haven’t yet seen a report indicating the problem is measurably better now outside of new systems completely lead free from the source to the faucet. The OP mentions additional mining required for the alternate components of lead-free solder and that raises the question of additional lead contamination from that mining into the ground water. Sometimes you poke the lead problem in one place and it bulges out somewhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Mia\_Martinez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Mia\_Martinez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mia_Martinez)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/4 "2020-04-29T18:16:54Z")
Yeah, I hope that this will be fixed soon. this is bad … ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/5 "2020-04-29T18:26:36Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Solder used in plumbing can leach into the water. Several factors involved, nothing as bad as lead pipes still in use buried in the ground who knows where, but it has eliminated some trace sources of lead. Leaded solder is still available for non-plumbing purposes. Plumbers continued to use lead solder for a long time after the ban, and I think a small amount of lead was allowed in solder for while but I haven’t found confirmation of that. But in many cases there is still plenty of lead in some water supply lines even if your house plumbing doesn’t have any. The overall effect is still difficult to measure because there is still lead in the water supply from other sources. I haven’t yet seen a report indicating the problem is measurably better now outside of new systems completely lead free from the source to the faucet. > > The OP mentions additional mining required for the alternate components of lead-free solder and that raises the question of additional lead contamination from that mining into the ground water. Sometimes you poke the lead problem in one place and it bulges out somewhere else. Yeah, OK, - getting lead out of potable water service is a fine idea, one I support completely. But, I think that was separate from the ROHS directives, which were aimed at electronics. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/6 "2020-04-29T18:46:02Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Yeah, OK, - getting lead out of potable water service is a fine idea, one I support completely. But, I think that was separate from the ROHS directives, which were aimed at electronics. Sorry, should have looked up [Restriction of Hazardous Subsances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive)first. The principle idea of those is to eliminate environmental pollution in the manufacturing and disposal of products. I assume there is less pollution at the manufacturing location, but as you mention, additional mining is required and may just create more environmental pollution at the mine instead of the factory. But for disposal of existing products, there’s still a lot of stuff older than the regulations in use that will eventually get disposed of. I don’t see how it can make that much difference this early in the game. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/7 "2020-04-29T19:42:52Z")
One of the complaints about RoHS originally was that very little lead in landfills and such comes from circuit boards, something like 2 percent or so IIRC. Also consider that RoHS only applies to new circuit boards, so all of the existing lead and other materials on circuit boards and such that was already in landfills is still there. It’s not like they are going to dig up all the old circuit boards and remove the lead. The effect at this point is probably fairly minimal, so much so that it might be difficult to effectively measure. This is especially true when other environmental regulations are geared at other sources of lead and toxic metals, so which regulation did what to the measurable lead levels can be difficult to determine. That said, I’m not personally opposed to RoHS, though I personally had to deal with a lot of the pain of switching manufacturing techniques and redesigning some circuit boards to handle the different solder required. All of those growing pains are behind us now, so going forward RoHS isn’t that big of a deal. By the way, how do you pronounce RoHS? Everyone I work with tends to pronounce it as row-hass, which is how I pronounce it since that’s the version I personally have heard the most. I have heard a lot of others pronounce it as rose. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/8 "2020-04-29T19:54:59Z")
I pronounce it “row-hoss.” It’s a big pain in the ass for me. Even well-qualified lines have lower yields on lead-free solder than 63/37. But, even more irritating is having to document the RoHS compliance of every component. Hermes Conrad’s wet dream. ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-restriction-of-hazardous-substances-directive-had-any-measurable-positive-effect-on-lead/852827/9 "2020-04-29T20:07:24Z")
At my place (in the UK) we pronounce in “Rosh” (or, more likely in the repair context we see, non-Rosh).