California Department of Toxic Substances Control Issued Initial List of Priority Products for the Green Chemistry Initiative
The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has released the initial list of Priority Products under the Safer Consumer Products regulation.
Green Chemistry Initiative for Safer Consumer Products California’s Safer Consumer Products Act (“California Green Chemistry initiative (http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/PollutionPrevention/GreenChemistryInitiative/upload/FAQs_greenchem.pdf)”) was signed into law in 2008 and implementation rules have been under development for several years. The purpose of the law is to accelerate the quest for safer products by having toxic chemicals removed from or reduced significantly in consumer products, instead of managing these chemicals at the end of the product’s lifecycle as hazardous waste. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/LawsRegsPolicies/Regs/upload/SCP-Public-Notice-7-23-2012.pdf) characterized the proposed regulation as a 'preemptive strategy that reduces the use of toxic substances in the design of products and industrial processes with the aim of creating safer and sustainable products that do not threaten human health or persist in the environment.'
On 18 July 2013, DTSC sent the final draft of the regulation to the Office of Administrative law for review and approval. This approval was granted on 28 August and the regulations went into effect on 1 October 2013. On 26 September 2013, DTSC issued its list of Candidate Chemicals, which is the list of chemicals (http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/SCP/ChemList.cfm) that DTSC has determined to be problematic either to humans or to the environment. This list, which contains approximately 1060 chemicals, is available on the DTSC website. A smaller sub-list of Candidate Chemicals (CC) was given at the same time, and these chemicals were to determine those consumer products that would be the first to be focused on as Priority Products, that is, products that contained one or more Candidate Chemicals (which would then be referred to as Chemicals of Concern).
List of Priority Consumer Products
Under the regulation, DTSC had until 1 April 2014 to issue a proposed list of, at most, five Priority Products. That list was issued on 13 March 2014, and consists of the following three consumer products (http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/SCP/index.cfm):
- Spray polyurethane foam, which may contain unreacted diisocyanates. Diisocyanates are implicated in causing occupation asthma in both the EU and the US. These products are widely used for home insulation purposes and sold directly to consumers and builders.
- Children’s foam-padded sleeping products that may contain tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate, the flame retardant commonly referred to as TDCPP. These products include nap mats and cots, sleep positioners, travel beds, bassinet foam, portable crib mattresses, play pens, and car bed pads.
- Paint and varnish strippers, and surface cleaners that contain methylene chloride as an organic solvent. Methylene chloride is acutely toxic to the nervous system once it metabolizes to carbon monoxide.
The above priority products are proposed by DTSC and will need to go through an individual rulemaking process for each product, a process that may take up to two years. After a product is finalized, manufacturers of a Priority Product that contains one or more Chemicals of Concern will be required to notify DTSC of their product within six months. Please refer to SafeGuards No. 184/13 (http://newsletter.sgs.com/eNewsletterPro/uploadedimages/000006/sgs-safeguards-18413-california-candidate-chemicals-for-green-chemistry-a4-en-13.pdf.pdf) for details on how the regulation is to work and the timelines involved.
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