The “Act for Resource Recycling of Electrical/Electronic Products and Automobiles has been adopted in South Korea” and in many respects follows the EU WEEE and RoHS Directives as well as the EU ELV Directive. However it is not the same and there are significant differences. Unfortunately very little information is available from South Korea, especially in English.

It was originally announced that the act would come into effect on 1 July 2007 but latest information indicates a date of 1 January 2008.

The Act states that manufacturers will be required to restrict the use of hazardous substances (unless no substitutes exist). The substances and concentrations have not been announced but are expected to be the same as those used for the EU-RoHS.

Scope is unclear but appears from the wording used in the legislation to apply to all types of electrical equipment; no list of products or categories has been published. However information from other sources indicates that only certain categories of equipment (mainly consumer, household and IT) will be included initially. Exemptions will be permitted if allowed by the Ministry of Environment.

It is also not clear if substances will be banned (as per the EU-RoHS approach) or that manufacturers will only be required to avoid them if possible but label products with the names of these substances and their concentrations. At present it appears that the latter approach will be used which is similar to the Japanese J-MOSS marking requirements.

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