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USA: Oregon updates Toxic Free Kids Act

october 2018- Relevant for: toys and children's products

USA Oregon recently updated the Toxic Free Kids Act. This Act requires manufacturers of children’s products sold in Oregon to report products that contain one or more high priority chemicals of concern for children’s health (HPCCCH). The total number of HPCCCH¹ was revised to 68 and this would come into effect by 1 January 2019. Moreover, the notification requirements and the Exemption Request fee² were also updated and took effect from 1 October 2018.

As reported in August 2018, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) proposed the updates³ and called for public comments. The adopted amendment is the same as the proposal. The HPCCCH list should be reviewed every three years since it became effective. The OHA is required to consider changes from Washington State’s list of Chemicals of High Concern to Children (CHCC). As a result, the OHA only added five chemicals that were added to the CHCC list and removed the three chemicals. Please refer to Table 1 and 2 for details. The Toxic Free Kids Act requires manufacturers to report bi-annually and the next reporting due day will be on 1 January 2020. This is subject to children’s product sold or offered for sale between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2019.

The notification requirements are also highlighted as follows:

• If the children’s products contain HPCCCH, the number of children’s products sold or offered for sale in Oregon must be reported.
• Only one entity who meets the definition of manufacturers is required to report.
• A priority order of reporting is now established. Manufacturers are at the top priority unless they have no presence in the USA. The second one is distributors. Otherwise, the responsibility falls to importers. The enforcement will follow the same order as well.
• The Exemption Request Review Fee is aligned. If a company requests an exemption, they need to pay a $1500 non-refundable fee, and an hourly fee of $200 for the request to reviewed by the OHA.

  Table 2. Three Chemicals removed from the HPCCCH list

[1] Revision to HPCCCH list

[2] Revision to notification amendment and fee

[3] TÜV SÜD E-ssentials Vol.16 of 2018 – Oregon proposes revisions to children’s products reporting rules