CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 65:
All products shipped by Sweda Company, LLC. into the State of California are subject to Proposition 65 (“Prop 65”) or The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. Prop 65 was created through the ballot initiative process and was intended to inform California citizens by requiring a warning when a product contains one of 900 substances designated by the state as potentially causing cancer, reproductive harm, or birth defects. A Proposition 65 warning label does not mean a product violates any health or safety rule. Although the Prop 65 is not new, the regulations implementing it have changed, which may change how we provide warning labels for our products.
Companies are becoming increasingly vulnerable to lawsuits for alleged violations of Prop 65. It is important to note the very long reach of Proposition 65 liability. One need not be doing business in California to be in the chain of Prop 65 litigation. Sweda Company, LLC. is fully committed to providing the highest quality, safest products for our clients and all Sweda products meet applicable federal safety and warning requirements, standards and regulations as enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission. While procedures have been established as part of our ongoing Product Safety initiatives throughout our supply chain to insure the purchase and use of raw materials that will meet Prop 65 standards, our efforts have to date been focused on the Third Party testing of our products to insure that they are in compliance with the very stringent regulations set forth by the CPSIA in regards to lead content in substrates and surface coatings of Children’s Products and Toys along with applicable Phthalate content. While lead content has been the focus of litigation in many Prop 65 cases, our current Prop strategy has been to use our lead testing program to demonstrate that the products that we ship to California meet the Proposition 65 standards for lead.
Because we cannot test every piece of every order that we ship to California for all 900 plus Prop 65 listed chemicals, you may continue to have concerns about compliance with Proposition 65. If so, then the safest option is to include a label on each product that may ship to the State of California which we will do free of charge upon request. The label will read as follows and will ensure full compliance with California Proposition 65 requirements:
WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.p65warnings.ca.gov.
For a plain language version of the Proposition 65 regulations, please visit: http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html. For more information regarding chemicals listed under Prop 65 please visit: https://oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/proposition-65-list
