U.S. – July 2020 California Proposition 65 – 60-Day Notices Analysis

Vol. 1202 | 08 Dec 2020

The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, commonly referred to as Proposition 65 (Prop 65), is enforced by the California Attorney General’s office or any district attorney or certain city attorneys or by any individual acting in the public interest. Prop 65 requires that an individual acting in the public interest, to enforce the Act give notice of the impending action to the person alleged to be committing the violation, along with the Attorney General, district attorneys and certain city attorneys in which the violation is alleged to have occurred. The notice must be sent to these parties no less than 60 days before commencing the action; thus, this notice is commonly referred to as the “60-day Notice of Violation”.

In July 2020, there were a total of 305 60-day notices for violation of Prop 65, up from the 298 notices served in June 2020. The majority of the notices were for phthalates, accounting for 41% of the total recalls. A total of 32% of the notices were for lead or lead compounds. The remaining 28% of the notices were for other chemicals, which includes acrylamide, cadmium, marijuana smoke, etc.

Bags & cases had the most notices with 34 (11%), all of which were issued for phthalates, followed closely by tools & hardware, which had 31 notices (10%). It was interesting to see that cell phone cases had 5 notices served for Bisphenol A (BPA)

Other notable observations were as follows:

• Packaging for various products such as bedding to personal care products had 9 notices for phthalates
• Apparel (aprons, bibs & ponchos) had 4 notices for phthalates

Note: The analysis excludes 135 60-day notices served for food.

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For questions, please contact:

Stella Xingyu Li
xingyu.li@intertek.com
503-351-9612

Pratik Ichhaporia
pratik.ichhaporia@intertek.com
847-212-8273