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

Vol. 1200 | 04 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 August 2020, there were a total of 302 60-day notices for alleged violation of Prop 65, while there were 305 notices served in July 2020. The majority of the notices were for phthalates, accounting for 51% of the total notices. A total of 27% of the notices were for lead or lead compounds. The remaining 22% of the notices were for other chemicals, which includes acrylamide, cadmium, diethanolamine, furan, arsenic, mercury, etc.

Bags & cases accounted for 62 notices or 20.5% of the total, all of which were issued for phthalates. Other notable observations were as follows:

• Fishing gear had 30 notices (28 lead notices and 2 phthalate notices).
• Packaging for various products such as dental tool kits, bedding to personal care products had 9 notices for phthalates.
• Leather gloves had 2 notices for hexavalent chromium.
• Footwear (sandals) had 3 notices for phthalates.
• Apparel (rain jackets & ponchos) had 3 notices for phthalates.
• Bedding had 1 notice for formaldehyde.
• Cellphone cases had one notice for Bisphenol A (BPA).

Note: The analysis excludes 75 60-day notices served for food.

click to enlarge

For questions, please contact:

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

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