CIBJO’s Precious Metals Commission releases 2011 Special Report

The Precious Metals Commission of CIBJO, The World Jewellery Confederation, has highlighted key international legislative proposals pertaining to heavy metals, particularly nickel, cadmium and lead ratios in jewellery that will likely affect the industry, in its special report. It will present its report at the 2011 CIBJO Congres, slated on March 14 in Porto, Portugal.

The issue of nickel had invited proposed changes by the CEN Working Group to amend EN 1811 in the EU, which were passed by a majority, but not unanimously. Now the EU will introduce ‘no decision’ as a category for testing, apart from the existing ‘pass’ and ‘fail categories’, although the implication of the ‘no decision’ category is not explained further. The report also informs about a draft expected to be adopted for regulation amendments that expand restrictions on cadmium in applications including in jewellery products, in the first quarter of 2011. Once published in the Official Journal of the European Union, the draft will be enforced in early July 2011. Two testing methods are described for US regulators to implement when enforcing cadmium laws to limit the trace amount of cadmium in children's jewellery.

France is expected to incorporate a limit for lead into the REACH directive by 2012, an issue which has raised concern due to harmful effects of lead especially on children. In the absence of any specific EU legislation, standards set in the USA that currently allows a limit of 300 parts per million of lead by content are referred to, which is likely to drop to 100 ppm in August 2011.

Also, the Dodd-Frank Act signed by US President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, contains a section on ramifications for companies using gold and other minerals. New disclosure regulations relating to the use of ‘conflict minerals’ originating from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries have been issued in the Section 1502 of the Act. Guidelines and details will be finalised in April 2011.