California Prop 65 Warning Update, New EU Packaging Legislation and a China Round-Up

The California Proposition 65 Short-Form Warning Update

The attempt of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) to change the short-form warning has finally come to fruition. Since January 8, 2021 when OEHHA first proposed a revamp of the short-form warning, we have been awaiting a final version to make it through the comment periods and the Administrative Procedures Act’s timeframe. That time has finally arrived!

On December 6, 2024, OEHHA announced that rulemaking had been approved and the effective date for the regulation would be January 1, 2025. The biggest change—required for products manufactured and labeled as of January 1, 2028—is that the short-form warning will explicitly identify a specific Proposition 65 chemical substance. A primary intent, aside from providing the consumer more information, is to reduce the propensity of many manufacturers to use the short-form warning as a prophylactic to protect against possible lawsuits (should they have failed to note the presence of such a substance in an accessible location of their product).

Whereas, today the format of the warning is:

⚠️    WARNING: Cancer - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov

The same warning will, as of January 1, 2028, be of the form:

⚠️    WARNING: Cancer risk from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
⚠️    WARNING: Can expose you to [name of chemical], a carcinogen. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

So much for “short.” Some of the restrictions on the use of the warning include:

• The warning must explicitly call out one or more chemicals and use the full chemical name as it appears on the Proposition 65 chemical list.
• The short-form warning can only be used directly on the product or its immediate packaging.
• The warning must be in a type size no smaller than the largest type size used for other consumer information on the product and in no case in a type size smaller than 6-point type.
• The warning language is specific to the chemical or chemicals the user can be exposed to. Look up the chemicals to see whether they are listed for cancer, reproductive harm or both.

So, start reviewing your use of the short-form warning and determine whether it makes sense to do the work necessary to determine whether a warning is necessary. Make sure you have appropriate control over your supply chain to ensure consistency and compliance over time. The days of prophylactic warning labels for Prop 65 are over.
 

An Overview of the New EU Packaging Regulation

The original EU Packaging Directive 94/62/EC first came into being over 30 years ago, well before the new millennium’s Y2K issues demanded specifying the full four-digit year. In early January, the long-expected recast finally made it out of committee and into the regulatory regimen of the EU. Technically, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR) came into force on Feb 11 but the current Directive 94/62/EC is not repealed until August 12, 2026 (per Article 70). So there's an 18-month transition period.

Note that regardless of where your company is in the supply chain and if your packaging ends up in the EU, this regulation applies to one extent or another. PPWR applies to all levels of packaging, from transport to retail product and covers both B2B and B2C packaging.

One positive aspect of this regulation, which applies directly across all EU Member States, is that it pre-empts all the unique packaging-specific requirements in the various Member States like France, Italy, Sweden, etc. We’ll see how that works out.

After a (quick) readthrough here are some other critical aspects:

• This is a New Legislative Framework (NLF)/CE Mark Regulation, so it must be listed in the product DoCs (or a separate DoC must be included for packaging). This means that conformity assessment and technical documentation will also be required (this may be an entirely new requirement for some component manufacturers shipping product to the EU)
• All packaging material must be recyclable by 2030
• By 2030, any plastic packaging component must contain a minimum percentage of recycled content
• Packaging design must prioritize recyclability, the use of recycled content and reusability with marketing considerations no longer justifying excessive material use
• Packaging weight and volume must be minimized (while maintaining functionality and product safety) and will come into force around 1/1/2030
• Packaging labeling will be harmonized (in force around 8/12/2028 but dependent on a delegated act being produced first)
• Binding re-use targets for 2030
• Article 14 on Environmental Claims (watch out for that chasing arrows symbol...)
• Directive 94/62/EC is repealed with effect from August 12, 2026, with some exceptions

This will require the attention of your packaging development engineering team and potentially your marketing team as well, for the next several years as the European Commission begins the process of developing delegated acts to define the details.

This is on top of the attention your environmental compliance and engineering teams (and potentially numerous others) will have to spend on developments for ESPR and the Battery Regulation. If you haven’t already done so and want to keep the EU as a market, consider reassessing your staffing and expertise needs to manage the coming changes—as well as all the others coming from the EU, including recasts or significant updates to WEEE, REACH including upcoming PFAS and flame retardant restrictions and RoHS.
 

China RoHS Follow-Up

Recently, a proposed update to China RoHS—as noted in a previous column—went through a public comment period that would, among other things, expand the range of reportable (or restricted) substances to include the same four phthalates as were added to EU RoHS a decade ago. Two months after the public comment period ended, a review was held and the “expert group conducted a strict review of the technical content of the standard and agreed to submit the standard for approval” (per Google’s English translation of the notice).

Whether any of the public comments influenced the content of the draft standard is unclear, the notice provides no information about whether the content of the draft standard was changed. My biggest concern is whether manufacturers of products in the “Catalog” will have to test for the presence of the soon-to-be ten (assuming that change is accepted) restricted substances. My bet is that they will. How unfortunate and meaningless.

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