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

Vol. 1219 | 25 Jan 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 November 2020, there were a total of 314 60-day notices for alleged violation of Prop 65, compared to 333 notices served in October 2020. Majority of the notices were for phthalates, accounting for 51% of the total notices. A total of 20% of the notices were for lead, while remaining 29% of the notices were for other chemicals, such as acrylamide, formaldehyde gas, Chromium VI, cadmium, coconut oil diethanolamine condensate, arsenic, and mercury.

Food accounted for 106 (34%) of the total notices, followed by bags & cases, which had 51 notices and accounted for 16% of the total, all 60-day notices for bag & cases were issued for phthalates. Packaging for various products had 20 notices for phthalates. Notably, there were 12 Chromium VI notices, with 11 for gloves, 1 for shooting accessories. There were 4 formaldehyde notices for bedding products.

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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).