Anyone selling consumer products into California needs to be aware of whether they are a potential target for regulation under the California Safer Consumer Product regulations which became effective on October 1, 2013.
The initial priority products to be regulated will be selected by April 1, 2014. California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) will select up to five (5) priority products that contain a chemical on the initial candidate chemical list. So at this point all you can do is determine whether any of the products you sell in California contain any of the chemicals on the initial candidate chemical list.
There appear to be some early kinks in the database retrieval system posted on the website, so that two days ago, there were 312 chemicals on the list, but now that some QA/QC has been performed, there are 275. Apparently, there may have been reliance on an outdated EU list, so some further adjustments are likely.
Given these shifts, the most reliable way to determine whether a chemical you use is on the list is to use the DTSC Candidate Chemical database (not the posted, pre-filtered lists), click the box “Show Only Initial List” and hit the gray search button. Right now, that produces a list of 275 chemicals.
Why is 275 different than the 164 number bandied about and shown in various graphics? It’s because some chemicals belong to groups (e.g., PCBs) and the 164 number only includes the name of the group, and not all of the individual chemicals that make up that group.
Note that this initial list of 275 candidate chemicals applies to the selection of priority products to be selected for regulation in April 2014. Products to be regulated in future selections will be based on the entire candidate chemical list, which currently has 2,409 chemicals listed.
All clear now?
