On December 20, 2013, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added the phthalate DINP to the California Proposition 65 chemical list. Under Proposition 65, products containing newly listed chemicals require a warning starting 12 months after the listing. For DINP, this is December 20, 2014.
Given recent experience with other newly listed chemicals, such as cocamide DEA, we expect private Proposition 65 plaintiffs will be taking advantage of holiday sales to shop for products likely to contain DINP.
DINP is used as a PVC plasticizer. DINP is found in a variety of consumer products containing soft plastic or vinyl, including toys, fashion accessories, apparel, hardware products, and home goods. DINP is widely understood to have replaced other phthalates, such as DEHP, DBP, and BBP.
These phthalates are already Proposition 65 Listed Chemicals, and they have previously been the subject of industry-wide settlements in fashion accessories, including handbags, wallets, electronic device accessories, belts, and footwear. These settlements required reformulation to 1,000 parts per million of the phthalates. The federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act also limits DEHP, DBP, and BBP to 1,000 ppm in children’s toys and child care articles, and DINP, DIDP, and DnOP in mouthable toys and child care articles.
Retailers looking to avoid a blue Christmas may want to reach out to vendors of these products to get information on whether they contain DINP, require warnings, or should be removed from sale in California prior to December 20.
Suppliers and manufacturers of products containing DINP may want to contact their retail customers to see whether their customers anticipate still having these products in inventory in California as of that date.