California Proposition 65 Services

Your industry, our focus

What is the California Proposition 65?

In 1986, California voters approved an initiative to address their growing concerns about exposure to toxic chemicals and protect scare water resources. The initiative later became the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, more popularly known as “California Proposition 65” (Prop 65). The State published a list of chemicals known to cause cancers, birth defects or other reproductive harm. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) updates this list annually and it now includes over 800 chemicals.

What are the requirements?

Prop 65 requires businesses to notify consumers about significant amounts of the associated chemicals in the products they purchase with ‘clear and reasonable’ warning labels. These labels will allow consumers to make informed decisions at the time of purchases on protecting themselves from exposure to these chemicals. Any business that sells its products in California must be in compliance with Prop 65.

Textiles, including apparel and home furnishing, various leather goods, and footwear are regulated under Prop 65.

How is Prop 65 enforced?

The law does not ban or restrict the sale of products containing chemicals on the list. Companies meet the requirements of the law through proper disclosure and labelling of products. However, failing to disclose a Prop 65 listed chemical that is over the established safe harbour levels may result in fines up to US $2,500 per violation per day by the California Attorney General’s Office, as well as potential lawsuits by private parties/citizens.

How can Eurofins help?

Due to the non-existence of limit restrictions rather than threshold limits, our services are focused on first risk-assessing your product for the potential presence of any chemicals listed in the Prop 65 and then conducting laboratory testing on the recommended chemicals.

With our technical experts in global and local teams, we can provide intelligence on new surveillance and bounty hunters’ activities to our customers to keep them updated on the latest movement. In addition, in order to determine what chemicals are required to be listed on the warnings labels, we can perform a toxicological evaluation to assess the overpassing or not of safe harbour levels or Maximum Allowable Dose Levels (MADLs), as defined in the Proposition 65 list, and offer labelling review services.