California Proposition 65 FAQ

Our products may display the following warning:

"WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm."

In August 2016, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (“OEHHA”) adopted amended regulations to the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, originally approved in 1986, and generally referred to as “Proposition 65”.  The amended text is for the provision of a “clear and reasonable” warning.  The warning does not mean that our products will necessarily cause cancer or reproductive harm.  Moreover, a Proposition 65 warning does not mean that a product is in violation of any product-safety standards or requirements.  In fact, the California government has clarified that “the fact that a product bears a Proposition 65 warning does not mean by itself that the product is unsafe.”  The CA government has also further-clarified, “you could think of Proposition 65 more as a ‘right to know’ law than a pure product safety law.”  See: http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/background/p65plain.html.

Then what is Proposition 65?  Proposition 65 requires businesses to notify Californians about significant amounts of chemicals in the products they purchase, in their homes, or workplaces, or that are released into the environment.  By providing this information, Proposition 65 enables Californians to make informed decisions about protecting themselves from exposure to these chemicals.  The law applies to any company operating in California, selling products in California, or manufacturing products that may be sold in, or brought into California.  It mandates that the Governor of California maintain and publish a list of chemicals that are known to cause cancer, birth defects, and/or other reproductive harm.  The list, which must be updated annually, includes a wide variety of chemicals that can be found in many everyday items, such as dyes, solvents, drugs, food-additives, by-products of certain processes, pesticides, and tobacco products.  The warning means that after evaluating the exposure, the business has concluded that it exceeds the “no significant risk level,” or simply that the business wants to make public the presence of certain chemicals, without attempting to evaluate the exposure.  The law also requires warnings to be placed on any product, product packaging, or literature accompanying a product that can create an exposure above the daily safe harbor levels to any of the chemicals that the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (“OEHHA”) has determined can cause cancer or reproductive harm.  Many of the elements listed under Proposition 65 are routinely present in everyday consumer items such as bread, coffee, chocolate, and apparel.  A warning must be given if the listed chemical is merely present in a product, unless a business determines that the exposure it causes poses "no significant risk."

For these reasons, SMEG has chosen to provide a warning based on its knowledge about the presence of one or more listed chemicals without attempting to evaluate the level of exposure, as not all of the listed chemicals provide exposure limit requirements.  While the exposure may be negligible, or well within the “no significant risk” range, SMEG has elected to provide the Proposition 65 warnings.

In consideration of the high penalties for not complying, SMEG, like many other manufacturers, has elected to provide the Proposition 65 notice out of an abundance-of-caution, in order to avoid the potential for liability.

SMEG products are sold all over the US. Selling products specifically manufactured and packaged for the California market would be extremely-difficult to manage, and exceedingly-costly.  For this reason, as well as to be in compliance with the Proposition 65 requirements, we have decided to apply these warnings on all SMEG products sold in North America.

For general information on the Proposition 65 list of chemicals, you may contact OEHHA’s Proposition 65 program at (916) 445-6900, or visit http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65.html.  For enforcement information, contact the California Attorney General’s Office at (510) 873-6321, or visit http://oag.ca.gov/prop65.