The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, better known as California Proposition 65, requires businesses operating in the state of California to provide adequate warnings about exposure to, or the discharge of, chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.
Current Prop 65 Rules and What to Expect in the Future to Avoid Penalties
According to the Act, businesses must provide "clear and reasonable warnings" that a chemical being used or sold is known to cause cancer, birth defects and/or other reproductive injury. The list of chemicals is maintained by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA).
The warnings must also be presented to an individual before they're actually exposed to the chemical and must be warnings that have been determined to be properly transmitted, clear and reasonable.
Finally, a business must not knowingly release a listed chemical into public drinking water or onto land where it could pass into a drinking water source. Businesses have 20 months after a chemical is added to a list to comply.
But, Prop 65 labeling requirements are changing. Understand what you should know about the new California Prop 65 warning label in this video guide:
See what the new California Prop 65 label should look like.
When Should Companies Start Using the New Prop 65 Warnings?
The new Prop 65 warning label requirements will apply to products made after the August 30, 2018 deadline. However, if companies do not understand the exact chemical exposures in their products/buildings/workspaces, it will take a significant effort to understand where labeling risks may lie. Therefore, implementing a chemical compliance program now will help companies avoid fines and/or lawsuits.
What Can You Do Now?
Meeting the new Prop 65 labeling requirements can be achieved easily through Source Intelligence. You can proactively manage Prop 65 compliance by running your Full Materials Disclosures (FMD) against the Source Intelligence's real-time Prop 65 chemicals database to understand what products will need new labels. Find out more here.
Visit OEHHA's website for the current Proposition 65 List.
California Prop 65 Amendment Preparation Webinar
Source Intelligence, along with Wayne Rosenbaum recently debuted our Prop 65 Preparation webinar. Along with a detailed overview of internet warnings, here’s some of the topics we covered:
- Pre/post amendment regulation overview
- Labeling Variations
- Internet labeling, on-product labeling, packaging labeling, occupational labeling, public facility labeling and more unique situations.
- Bounty Hunter safeguarding best practices
- 60 day warning notice course of action overview
- Supply chain communication chain of custody
- Critical product information that needs to be passed through the supply chain
- Product chemical awareness
- Evidence-based data collection approach
- Declarations vs. product analytics
- Enterprise vs. SME compliance workflow examples
