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Reports on the environmental rules from the European Union (EU) that limit the use of toxic chemicals in electronic products and require high-technology manufacturers to pay for collecting and recycling used goods as of January 2005. Impact of the directives from the EU on the global electronics industry; Cost of complying with the EU rules; Concerns over the increasing electronic waste in Europe.

It is no surprise that the European Commission wants to tighten the regulation of European chemicals to promote cleaner living. But its current proposal is ambitious even by the European Union's (EU) own lofty environmental rhetoric, dwarfing anything dreamt up by the bossy bureaucrats of America's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The chemicals in question are not only the stuff of big, smelly factories, but those used in making everything from cosmetics to car parts. The aim is to subject all chemicals in use before 1981--and so not covered by current rules--to a tough safety-testing regime. Chemicals firms say they support the goal of REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) to update laws that have failed to rid Europe of the nastiest substances. REACH is largely the brainchild of Margot Wallstrom, the environment commissioner, who comes from Sweden, a country that has been leading the fight against chemicals.