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Product Stewardship

Hazardous Substances

For the latest news and updates on Cisco's Product Stewardship efforts click here.

The European Union Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) Directive takes effect on July 1, 2006. The RoHS Directive prohibits the sale into the European Union of electronic equipment containing lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs). Manufacturers will be responsible for eliminating these substances from their products.

Compliance

Cisco will comply fully with the RoHS Directive by July 1, 2006. We are working closely with our suppliers to ensure they understand and can comply with the RoHS requirements. At this time, 99 percent of our electrical components and many of our mechanical components are compliant. We are working closely with the noncompliant mechanical component suppliers to identify and qualify compliant solutions.

Lead-Free Solder Reliability
Lead is a common element in most solders today, with a 50-year reliability record. The RoHS Directive allows a lead-in-solder exemption for network infrastructure products to help the network infrastructure industry to validate the reliability of lead-free solder. This exemption will allow the industry to develop equally reliable lead-free solder alternatives for critical quality applications. Approximately 90 percent of Cisco's products qualify for the lead-in-solder exemption.

Cisco remains firmly committed to migrating to lead-free solder as soon as we are confident that it will ensure our customers the reliability their critical applications demand. Cisco is working collaboratively with industry leaders in the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) consortium. This partnership will help the entire industry move as quickly as possible to environmentally sound lead-free solutions.

Performance

We are currently on track to meet the July 2006 deadline for removing restricted substances from products sold in the European Union. In FY2005, the RoHS Implementation team completed its initial assessment of Cisco products. It is now focusing on ensuring all technical and compliance issues are addressed and affected products are converted on time.