Product conformity

The ATEX directive was originally published as Directive 94/9/EC in 1994. Under the New Legislative Framework, the ATEX Directive 94/9/EC was replaced by 2014/34/EU. The directive harmonises the various requirements within the EU with the aim of ensuring a uniform level of safety and removing trade barriers.

The guidelines cover personal protection and govern basic health and safety requirements as well as minimum regulations. This includes the regulation stating that potential sources of ignition that could cause an explosion must be excluded.

Wheels and castors are only indirectly affected by the ATEX directive. They are not devices or protection systems per se, but are components used in various technical applications and are not produced specifically for devices and protective systems. The determination of conformity takes place in the course of the conformity assessment for the entire product. Thus, the device manufacturer must ensure that its overall product complies with the ATEX directive.

Blickle Räder+Rollen GmbH u. Co. KG, as a manufacturer of wheels and castors, can only contribute to directive compliance by recommending electrically conductive or antistatic wheels and castors. Exceptions are wheels made of steel or cast iron, which may cause sparking in cases of collisions or due to subflooring.

Blickle does not exceed the annual quantity thresholds for minerals or metals for Union importers as set out in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2017/821. Therefore, we are not directly affected by the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation (EU) 2017/821 and are not subject to the annual reporting requirement.

Nevertheless, we identify the smelters in our supply chain, also with regard to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Section 1502, which aims to ensure that certain materials - such as tantalum, tungsten, tin, or gold, the so-called “conflict minerals” - are not sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its neighboring countries due to the ongoing civil war there.

In wheels and rollers, gold, tungsten, tantalum, and tin are generally not intended components. As a responsible company, we nevertheless exercise the necessary due diligence to determine whether the products supplied to you contain any of these materials. We fulfill this obligation with every delivery to you. If we identify a high-risk smelter in our supply chain, the smelter is required to undergo internationally recognized audits to ensure responsible sourcing.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic chemicals that have specific properties:

• Persistence over a long period of time
• Potential for long-distance transport
• Accumulation in the food chain
• Toxic to humans and animals

Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which entered into force on 15 July 2019 and replaced Regulation (EC) No 850/2004, established binding rules for all EU Member States regarding the production, placing on the market, use, as well as the release and disposal of POPs. The aim of the regulation is, in accordance with the precautionary principle, to protect human health and the environment from POPs.

We hereby confirm that our products comply with the requirements of Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 in its current version and do not contain any substances listed in Annex I of the regulation

The REACh Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 introduced a comprehensive restructuring of the policy for chemicals. REACh fundamentally harmonised chemicals law. The aim is to protect people and the environment and to collect all information on chemical substances in Europe centrally.

For the first time, a chemicals law also covers substances in manufactured articles. As a manufacturer of products, Blickle Räder + Rollen GmbH & Co. KG is therefore obliged to inform users if substances of very high concern (SVHC) are included in our products.

Following the entry into force of the REACh Regulation in June 2007, we began to regularly test our product range for SVHCs. Should a substance on the SVHC candidate list be included in one of our products at a rate of over 0.1% by mass, we will immediately comply with our disclosure obligation in accordance with Article 33 of the REACh Regulation.

The title of the RoHS Directive is "Directive 2011/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment".

This EU directive was implemented in national law with the publication of the "Ordinance on the Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment" (ElektroStoffV) on 9 May 2013.

On 4 June 2015, the Delegated Directive 2015/863/EU added four more substances to the list of hazardous substances. The maximum permissible concentrations have applied to products on a mandatory basis since 22 July 2019.

The products from Blickle Räder + Rollen GmbH & Co. KG - except the ErgoMove® products and selected customized solutions - are not electrical or electronic devices, which is why the regulation does not apply to our products.

However, as our wheels and casters are also mounted on electrical or electronic equipment, we do not use materials in our products that exceed the limits of the substances listed in Annex II. We can therefore confirm conformity to RoHS.