U.S. – California Adopts SB647 Amending the Jewelry Law

Vol. 1107 | 03 Oct 2019

On September 27, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom approved the Senate bill (SB) 647 Hazardous substances: metal containing jewelry. This bill amends the current California jewelry law to revise the definition of a child, lead and cadmium requirements for children’s jewelry, lead requirements for adult jewelry and describe the additional information required for the Certification.

SB647 amends the definition of a ‘child’ from children six years of age and younger, to person under 15 years of age, aligning with Canada’s definition of children’s jewelry. Hence the definition of a child will be more restrictive for California jewelry law, when compared to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA).

For children’s jewelry, the lead requirements will be dropped from 0.06% (600 ppm) to 0.009% (90 ppm) of lead by weight for surface coatings and 0.01% (100 ppm) of lead by weight for accessible components of a children’s jewelry, aligning with the CPSIA total lead content requirement. In addition, the cadmium requirement will be revised for surface coatings to 75 ppm soluble cadmium.

For adult jewelry, on and after June 1, 2020, the bill will reduce the lead content limits for electroplated metal, unplated metal, and a dye or surface coating to 0.05% (500 ppm) of lead by weight and will reduce the lead content limit for plastic or rubber to 0.02% (200 ppm) of lead by weight.

In addition, the bill will require the manufacturer or supplier certification to include additional detail, provided below, about the jewelry covered by the certification:

1. Identify the jewelry covered by the certificate, including a description of the jewelry that is sufficiently detailed to match the certificate to each product covered by the certificate and that could not be used to describe any jewelry that is not covered by the certificate.
2. Cite to each separate rule or standard for which the jewelry is being certified.
3. Identify the manufacturer or supplier certifying compliance of the jewelry, including the name, full mailing address, and telephone number of the manufacturer or supplier.
4. Include the contact information for the person maintaining records of the test results of jewelry tested for purposes of this article, including the name, full mailing address, email address, and telephone number of that person.
5. Include the date on which the jewelry was manufactured, including at least the month and year.
6. Include the location where the jewelry was manufactured, including at least the city or administrative region, state, if applicable, and country where the product was manufactured or finally assembled. If the same manufacturer operates more than one location in the same city, the street address of the factory shall be included.
7. Include the date or dates on which, and the location or locations where, the jewelry was tested for purposes of certification.
8. Identify any third-party laboratory that performed the testing for purposes of certification, including the name, full mailing address, and telephone number of the laboratory.

SB647 can be reviewed at: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB647

For questions, please contact Laxmi Ravikumar (laxmi.ravikumar@intertek.com, +1-630-209-9265) or Pratik Ichhaporia (pratik.ichhaporia@intertek.com, +1-847-212-8273)