U.S. – February 2021 California Proposition 65 – 60-Day Notices Analysis

Vol. 1235 | 02 Apr 2021

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 February 2021, there were a total of 296 60-day notices for violation of Prop 65, up from the 236 notices served in January 2020. A total of 170 of the total notices were for phthalates, accounting for 57% of the notices. Of the rest, 18% were for lead or lead compounds and the remaining 25% were for various other chemicals including acrylamide, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, mercury, furan, and asbestos.

Food accounted for 90 (30%) of all notices and has been excluded from the graph. The bags and cases category had the second greatest number of notices, accounting for 70 total notices (24%), 68 of the 70 notices for bags and cases were for phthalates. Notably, the remaining two notices for bags and cases were for BPA. The next category of products with the greatest number of notices was sports and recreation with 19 notices.

Other interesting notices in February were 7 notices for toys and games, which were all for phthalates. There were also 8 notices issued for BPA in shields/masks/guards, cases, sports and recreation products. Finally, there was 1 notice for asbestos, which was issued for an apartment complex. Notably, a trend we have seen continue from previous months, there were 6 notices for chromium, which were all for gloves in apparel, sports and recreation categories.

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For questions, please contact Stella Xingyu Li (xingyu.li@intertek.com, +1 503-351-9612 ) or Dr. Pratik Ichhaporia (pratik.ichhaporia@intertek.com , +1 847-212-8273).