California’s chemical warning labels are everywhere. A study finds they’re working.
Consumer advocates have long argued that requiring companies to label the toxic chemicals in their products would steer people away from items that could harm them - or at least help them make informed choices. In California, warning labels have become so commonplace that people joke about them. But a study suggests that the state’s label law is working - by encouraging companies to reduce their products’ toxic footprint.
The study, published Wednesday in Environmental Science & Technology, found that California’s right-to-know law, also known as Proposition 65, has effectively swayed dozens of companies from using chemicals known to cause cancer, reproductive harm or birth defects. The results back what many of the law’s supporters believe: Labeling harmful products can benefit public health.
According to Jennifer Ohayon, the study’s lead author, many companies said they removed ingredients listed under the 1986 law to avoid having to label their products, showing the influence of the law on internal corporate decision-making.
Known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, Proposition 65 lists more than 900 harmful chemicals.
“Companies don’t want to have to label their product as containing an ingredient that can cause cancer or reproductive harm,” said Ohayon, a research scientist at the Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts. Companies also removed toxic ingredients to protect themselves from litigation.
Researchers interviewed 32 businesses from a variety of sectors including personal care, clothing and health care, concluding that the law has led manufacturers to remove toxic chemicals from their products. And the impact is significant: 78 percent of interviewees said Proposition 65 prompted them to reformulate their ingredients; 81 percent of manufacturers said the law tells them which chemicals to avoid; 69 percent said it promotes transparency about ingredients and the supply chain.
Critics of the measure have cautioned that over-labeling could lead consumers to ignore product warnings, Ohayon said.
Andrew Fasoli, a spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council, said in a statement that the group and its members are ready to work with state lawmakers to address concerns while also allowing for the important uses and benefits of modern chemistry.
“ACC strongly believes that regulations should be based on the best available science, which is a risk-based approach and not, as is the case with Prop 65, hazard based,” Fasoli said. “The mere presence of a chemical in a product does not necessarily mean there is a potential for harm.”
Many of the manufacturers who participated in the study said they removed harmful ingredients from all their products, not only from those sold in California. “This shows that state laws can be really effective, and they’re effective beyond just the borders of the state,” Ohayon said.
Ohayon’s findings are supported by other research from the Silent Spring Institute. A study published last year, which was funded under the same grant, found that Californians’ exposure to chemicals listed under Proposition 65 has decreased in recent years - and that chemical exposure also went down for people across the country.
“All of the studies that came out of this broader Prop 65 research question really concluded that, yes, Prop 65 has an impact,” said Kristin Knox, the lead author on the chemical exposure study.
Joel Tickner, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said Proposition 65 was a pioneer in disclosure-based state policy in the ’80s, influencing many other state laws.
“The states have always been the innovators in environmental policy. The U.S. federal government has always been a laggard when it comes to moving the bar on environmental policy, particularly chemicals,” Tickner said.
“That’s the power of it: forcing companies to reckon with what’s in their supply chains or what they are working with,” he added. “Ignorance is not bliss.”