No Treats, Too Many Tricks, For PFAS This Halloween

November 17, 2021

Read the full article by Rick McNeil (Consumer Products, Product Liability and Torts)

"In a major move by California that may be but a harbinger of a dramatic sea change in banning or severely restricting the inclusion of hundreds of chemicals present in every-day consumer goods, California just imposed upon the consumer product industry (culminating, at least most likely for 2021, right before the end of October), a sweeping range of bans that likely will fundamentally disrupt the California consumer product economy.

Ostensibly driven by concern over the presence of PFAS and other chemicals loosely included in that family of compounds colloquially referred to as “forever chemicals,” and even in the absence of developed or well-understood science assessing the potential for human health risk, Governor Newson signed four bills in just one day in October that established new laws affecting food packaging, cookware and children’s mattresses, sets, strollers and the like, on the heels of the enactment of additional legislation and regulation passed earlier this year and last that has progressively been expanding both the scope and the magnitude of these impending bans and restrictions on the sale of consumer and commercial products containing PFAS in California."