California safer chemicals work plan
California’s DTSC (California Department of Toxic Substances Control) has released a three-year work plan for safer consumer products regulation, part of California’s “Green Chemistry Initiative”. The plan covers Beauty/Personal Care and Hygiene, Building Products: Paints, Adhesives, Sealants and Flooring, Household/Office Furniture and Furnishings with perfluorochemicals or flame retardants, Cleaning Products, Clothing, Fishing and Angling Equipment, Office Machinery Consumable Products.
Candidate chemical groups include brominated flame retardants (specifying as hazard traits: bioaccumulation, environmental persistence, undefined toxicity), some chlorinated FRs, and a few other flame retardant chemicals (see below). The objective, in particular for indoor furniture and furnishings, is to ensure that “older classes of chemicals e.g. brominated flame retardants” are not replaced by substitutes for which inadequate data is not yet available or which might pose toxicity concerns. To verify this, the work plan will look at organophosphorus flame retardants in building products and in furniture and furnishings.
Non-halogenated chemicals used as flame retardants listed by DTSC: t‐Butylphenyl diphenyl phosphate, Tricresyl phosphate, Trimethyl phosphate, Triphenyl phosphate, Trixylyl phosphate, 2‐Ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate, Dimethylphosphate, Isodecyl diphenyl phosphate, Isopropylated triphenyl phosphate, Resorcinol bis(diphenyl phosphateCalifornia Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) , Safer Consumer Products (SCP) final 2015-2017 work plan http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/SCP/PPWP.cfm