First Priority Products listing proposed under CA’s Safer Consumer Products program.

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Today, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) announced that the comment period is now open for the first Priority Product listing regulation under the state’s Safer Consumer Products (SCP) program. The proposed regulation would establish a Priority Products list containing one item: children’s foam-padded sleeping products containing tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCPP) or tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP). Both substances, which are used as flame retardants, are known to the state of California as carcinogenic and are associated with various other hazard traits, including genotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity. TDCPP and TCEP are described in the proposal’s accompanying Technical Report [PDF] as “easily released to indoor and outdoor environments” and “ubiquitous,” having been detected worldwide in homes, offices, and daycare centers, as well as in waterways, wildlife, and human breast milk.

The proposed listing encompasses products designed for children, toddlers, babies, or infants to nap or sleep on that incorporate polyurethane foam mats, pads, or pillows that contain TDCPP or TCEP. This includes, among other products: nap mats, soft-sided portable cribs, play pens, bassinets, co-sleepers, and baby or toddler foam pillows. The listing specifically excludes:

  • mattresses “as defined and covered by the requirements of CPSC 1632/1633”;
  • furniture regulated under California Technical Bulletin 117-2013; and
  • “[a]dd-on child restraint systems for use in motor vehicles and aircraft that are required to meet federal flammability standards.”

This is the first of three Priority Products that DTSC originally proposed, in draft form, more than two years ago. DTSC will list the other two Priority Products – spray polyurethane foam (SPF) systems containing unreacted diisocyanates and paint/varnish strippers and surface cleaners containing methylene chloride – through separate rulemaking proposals. Based on the Priority Products Work Plan released last year, the agency will identify as many as five additional Priority Products, drawn from the seven product categories ranging from Cleaning Products to Clothing, in 2016 and 2017.

The comment period runs through August 29, 2016. Once finalized, the Priority Products listing triggers the requirement that manufacturers submit a Preliminary Alternatives Analysis Report within 180 days after the effective date of the regulation.