California Proposes to Strengthen its Jewelry Law
California is proposing to amend its Metal-Containing Jewelry law. The proposal includes a new definition for children’s jewelry and strengthening requirements for lead and cadmium.
SAFEGUARDS | Consumer Products NO. 080/19
In 2006, California enacted the Lead-Containing Jewelry Law (AB 1681, 2006) to restrict lead in jewelry, a landmark piece of legislation derived from a Proposition 65 (Prop 65) consent judgment involving several major retailers for failing to provide a Prop 65 warning under this unique right-to-know law.
Since its enactment, the Lead-Containing Jewelry Law has been amended on several occasions. These included, among other things, the following:
Expanding the scope of jewelry to include certain watch-related products, and attachments to shoes or clothing that can be removed and may be used as ornaments, and tie clips - Requiring manufacturers to certify their products are compliant with the law
- Restriction of cadmium content in children’s jewelry
- Renaming the law to ‘Metal-Containing Jewelry Law’
Adopting federal standards for lead content in children’s jewelry New definition of age limit for children’s jewelry to be similar (but not identical) to the Canadian Children’s Jewelry Regulations (SOR/2018-82) Establishing soluble cadmium for surface coatings on children’s jewelry Strengthening the lead content limit for certain materials to align with those under entry 63 to Annex XVII of Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) in the European Union
Interestingly, the three categories of materials, Classes 1, 2 and 3, have been deleted and the specifications for body piercing jewelry remains unchanged.
It is important to note that the language may change during its passage in the legislature.
Highlights of the proposal as amended (version April 11, 2019) are summarized in Table 1.
Scope of Jewelry | Requirement |
---|---|
Children's jewelry (15 years and younger) |
≤ 90 ppm lead (surface coatings)
≤ 75 ppm soluble cadmium (surface coatings) |
Body piercing jewelry |
Materials to be used:
|
All other jewelry |
Materials to be used:
otherwise: ≤ 200 ppm lead (plastics or rubber, including acrylic, polystyrene, plastic beads and stone, and polyvinyl choride (PVC) ≤ 500 ppm lead (electroplated metals, unplated metals unless otherwise listed, dyes or surface coatings, and other materials) |
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