California Proposition 65 and New Substances

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) regularly adds new chemicals to the California Proposition 65 List (Prop.65). The entire list of California Proposition 65 substances is updated on the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) website.

What is the California Proposition 65?

Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, is a California law that requires businesses to provide warnings to Californians about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. The California Proposition 65 list is updated every year. Therefore, it is crucial to remain informed on the latest added Prop.65 substances such as 1-Bromo-3-Chloropropane, Butyl Glycidyl Ether, and Glycidyl Methacrylate.

How to Make Sure that you Comply with California Proposition 65?

To comply with the Proposition 65, you must follow these steps:

1. Determine the scope

This regulation applies to products sold, imported, or distributed in the state of California.

2. Due your due diligence

Determine if your products contain any of the chemicals listed under Prop. 65

Conduct audits on your supply chain.
Assess your potential risks.
Confirm compliance from upstream suppliers.
Investigate the prop.65 status of similar products subject to Notices of Violations.
Prepare compliance plans.

3. Assess whether your product is Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Consumer (B2C)

B2B products require a declaration list of contained prop.65 substances.
B2C products require exposure warning labels.

Interestingly, there are three types of exposures that require a warning:

The consumer product exposure
The environmental exposure

The occupational exposure.

4. Evaluate the exposure levels

If your consumer products contain listed chemicals, you need to evaluate the level of exposure to determine if it is significant enough to trigger the warning requirement.

5. Provide a California Proposition 65 Warning

If the exposure is significant, you must provide a clear and reasonable warning to California consumers. This so-called safe harbor warning can be given on:

the product label.
on a sign at the point of sale
through a general warning on a product website.

6. Keep proper documentation

You must maintain records that demonstrate your compliance with Prop. 65, including:

Documentation such as datasheets, SDS, certificates of conformity, drawing sheets, testing reports, full material declarations (FMDs), etc.
Any chemical testing performed to determine the presence of the listed prop.65 substances.
Exposure evaluations

In What Products are California Proposition 65 Substances Found?

California Proportion 65 listed chemicals can me in many applications: electronics, pesticides, drugs, sovents, furniture, construction materials, etc.

Here are examples of some of the hundreds of Prop. 65 substance that were added in January 2023:

Prop.65 Chemical Name	CAS No.	Risk	Possible Applications
1-Bromo-3-Chloropropane	19-70-6	Cancer	Intermediate in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals
Butyl Glycidyl Ether	2426-08-4	Cancer	Diluents in Epoxy resins. Acid acceptor for stabilizing chlorinated solvents and chemical intermediates
Glycidyl Methacrylate	106-91-2	Cancer	Chemical intermediate for polymers monomer and diluent resins Emulsions for impregnating paper and textiles

References:

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://oehha.ca.gov/chemicals/n-butyl-glycidyl-ether

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