Brazil RoHS Adopted! The Hard Part Is Not the Chemistry
As our readers know, Brazil RoHS has been in development since 2018. Now, it’s a reality with approval by CONAMA on June 10. For companies already selling electronics or electrical equipment in Brazil, or planning to, this is the moment to shift attention from what the rule restricts to what it requires locally.
What is Brazil RoHS?
This is Brazil’s equivalent to the EU’s Directive on Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electric and electronic products (RoHS). Expect publication in the official gazette any day now.
The Familiar Part of Brazil RoHS: The Chemistry
The substance restrictions will look immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with EU RoHS. The same six substance categories are restricted at the same concentration limits: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, and phthalates. For companies already EU RoHS compliant, your product design and materials chemistry are almost certainly ready to go.
The Hard Part: Local Compliance Hurdles
Brazil is layering market access obligations on top of the substance restrictions that go well beyond the EU model. This is where you should focus attention:
- Mandatory product registration in a national database before placing products on the market. This is not an EU requirement and will require advance planning.
- Brazil-specific declaration of conformity will be required. Your EU Declaration of Conformity will not work. Companies will need localized documentation.
- Local legal responsibility means importers and distributors may be treated as manufacturers for compliance purposes. This means the obligation does not rest solely with the foreign producer.
- Labeling and traceability requirements: potentially including digital access mechanisms.
- Local inspection readiness: products must be prepared for testing and inspection by Brazilian authorities.
The practical implication is direct: a company can be fully EU RoHS compliant and still not be market-ready in Brazil. The gap is not engineering but compliance infrastructure. Companies will need a Brazil-based responsible entity, registered products, localized declarations, and documented traceability before they can legally sell into the Brazilian market.
The Two Last Minute Amendments
CONAMA adopted two floor amendments before approving the resolution. The first clarifies that the new rule does not impede the work of the Deliberative Committee to be established under Brazil REACH. This signals that the two frameworks are intended to coexist and that the RoHS resolution is not meant to pre-empt the broader chemical management architecture. The second expands the national defense exemption to cover dual-use equipment. Neither amendment changes the core substance restrictions or the local compliance requirements.
What’s Next?
Official gazette publication triggers the compliance timeline. Companies selling electrical and electronic equipment in Brazil should begin mapping their product portfolios against the registration and documentation requirements now before the clock starts running.
Panama: GHS Is Coming and Central America Keeps Moving
The building block of new chemical control requirements in Latin America has been the adoption of the GHS. A country’s adoption often precedes — or accompanies — modern framework schemes like the LATAM REACH-inspired laws of Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Central America is in the news as GHS expands there: Costa Rica has had it on the books for years, El Salvador adopted in 2025, and now Panama has posted its draft GHS standard for public consultation.
Panama’s Directorate General of Industrial Standards and Technology (DGNTI) published Draft Technical Regulation RT DGNTI XXX:2026 on June 2, 2026, open for public comment through August 2, 2026. The draft implements the seventh revised edition of the GHS (the UN Purple Book) for the classification and hazard communication of chemical substances and mixtures across the Panamanian market.
Scope
The regulation applies to all natural and legal persons, public and private, involved in the production, import, storage, transport, commercialization, use, and consumption of chemical products whether pure substances, mixtures, and solutions in Panama. Transport by maritime, air, and rail routes is excluded, governed instead by UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods.
Excluded at the point of final consumer use: articles, medicines and pharmaceutical products, food additives, cosmetics, and pesticide residues in food. Also excluded by their specific characteristics: biological materials, radioactive materials, and hazardous waste.
Four Sector Application
The draft organizes GHS implementation across four key sectors: transport, consumer, agriculture, and occupational/workplace. Each sector has designated competent authorities responsible for inspection and enforcement: a notably multi-agency structure involving the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Agricultural Development, Social Security Fund, Consumer Protection Authority, Customs Authority, Transit Authority, and the Fire Brigade.
GHS for Consumer Products
Continuing the big trend we see for Latin America, Panama would adopt a GHS that applies to labeling and SDS for consumer products. This broad scope application is by far the trend as narrow scope (think: workplace only) countries even expand to new categories of final products like Argentina and Brazil for lawn care and pesticides.
Obligations by Actor
Manufacturers and importers carry the core obligations: classify chemical hazards, generate and supply labels and Safety Data Sheets in Spanish in accordance with GHS requirements, and maintain technical documentation supporting the classification available for authorities on request.
Distributors must demand GHS-compliant Spanish-language labeling from suppliers, provide updated SDS to customers, and may not modify hazard communication received from manufacturers or importers.
Employers must ensure all workplace chemicals are labeled and have accessible SDS, train workers on label and SDS interpretation, maintain GHS labeling on any transferred containers, and progressively replace NFPA diamond labeling with GHS hazard hierarchy — though NFPA 704 signage at fixed installations remains required where Panamanian or regional regulations mandate it.
Timeline
Authorities have two years from entry into force to adapt their sector-specific regulatory frameworks and build enforcement capacity. Manufacturers, importers, employers, and distributors have three years from entry into force to update all GHS elements across their product portfolios.
Why It Matters
For chemical, agrochemical, cosmetics, and industrial products companies operating across Central America, Panama’s adoption fills a gap in the regional GHS map. Companies exporting into Panama or operating there should begin assessing their Spanish-language SDS and label compliance against the seventh revised GHS edition — the same version now being adopted across the region.
Link to Draft:
Mexico: A Hazardous Waste Rule is Really an EPR Schemes
Mexico’s new General Circular Economy Law is still waiting for its implementing regulation expected in July. But companies selling certain products in Mexico need to remember that they may face extended producer responsibility obligations under a different legal instrument that has been quietly moving through the pipeline: a proposed Official Mexican Standard on hazardous waste management plans.
PROY-NOM-160-SEMARNAT-2026, published June 9, 2026, for a 60-day public comment period, looks at first glance like a hazardous waste rule aimed at industrial generators. However, it actually applies not only to large volume hazardous waste generators and medical waste. It’s the third category that’s our focus here: a product-specific EPR framework requiring producers, importers, exporters, and distributors to take responsibility for what happens to their products after consumers discard them.
Which Products Trigger the Obligation
Mexico’s waste management law (LGPGIR) defines the product categories whose end-of-life generates hazardous waste subject to mandatory management plans. Companies placing any of the following on the Mexican market are in scope:
- used lubricating oils,
- used organic solvents,
- vehicle catalytic converters,
- lead-acid vehicle batteries,
- mercury or nickel-cadmium batteries,
- fluorescent and mercury vapor lamps,
- additives containing mercury, cadmium or lead,
- pharmaceuticals, and
- pesticides along with their containers with remaining residues.
For companies in these categories, the obligation is not simply to manage waste generated in their own operations. The obligation is to design, register, and execute a plan covering the entire post-consumer lifecycle of their products — collection, storage, transport, and final disposal — and to communicate to consumers how and where to return them.
What the Plan Must Cover
Management plans under draft must identify the covered hazardous wastes, describe the full logistics chain from consumer return through final disposal, establish consumer communication strategies, and define shared responsibilities across all parties in the chain. Companies without the infrastructure to run their own plan may adhere to a previously registered collective plan — the standard’s equivalent of a collective compliance scheme.
Timeline
The public consultation period closes August 8, 2026. As drafted, the text calls for the NOM – once adopted – to enter into force 180 days after final publication. Companies without a registered plan at that point would have 120 additional days to comply. It is not possible to predict when a final version will be adopted after the closing of the current consultation process.
Link to Draft:
https://www.dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5790008&fecha=09/06/2026#gsc.tab=0
Need support navigating Latin American regulatory requirements? Reach out at mowen@ambientelegal.com or visit www.ambientelegal.comficial.gob.ar/detalleAviso/primera/342894/20260608
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