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The RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive is applied uniformly in Europe and bans lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) as hazardous substances since July 1, 2006.
Within the scope of this directive, categories 8 and 9 shown in annex 1A are explicitly excluded for the time being. This means when our components are used in medical or industrial devices, they are, strictly speaking, not covered by the RoHS directive. When used in the other categories, e.g. household appliances, compliance is required. Today, for all practical purposes, all electric and electronic products and by extension the components used therein are RoHS-compliant. Nevertheless, we assume that the market does not want to be bothered with details and, as a consequence, decided early on to simply eliminate hazardous substances in our product spectrum wherever possible and introduced an environmental policy that exceeds the requirements of the RoHS directive (-> Green Procurement). Hence, all Panasonic products are at least RoHS compliant.
Relays with contacts that contain cadmium are still exempt from the RoHS directive. However, due to its general corporate policy, Panasonic no longer offers any relays whose contacts contain cadmium. Though Panasonic offers Cd-free relays with similar specifications, we will, in rare cases and in this period of transition, produce relays with AgCdO contacts if the customer specifically requests them.
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