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LET’S TALK ABOUT CHEMICALS
in
your company’s products. Like all
consumer products, promotional
products are subject to two dif-
ferent but interwoven forces. On
the one hand, both federal and
state laws and regulations limit
the quantities of certain chemi-
cals and heavy metals permitted
in your products. On the other
hand, your company faces an
increasingly significant phenom-
enon that can be called “retail
regulation,” meaning that retail-
ers react to what people think,
whether this thinking is accurate
or not.
You may say, “But promo-
tional products are not normally
sold through retailers.”True, but
that matters little, because the
retail regulation phenomenon will
still affect the salability of your
products. Consumers increasingly
want products that are free of
chemicals they consider to be
hazardous. Which of these influ-
ences—government regulation or
consumer demand—will affect
your company and its products
first? Does it really matter? One
way or another, you will need to
comply. The point here is that
you have an opportunity now to
put yourselves ahead of both
curves by making product and/or
supplier changes that will benefit
your company’s bottom line in
the long run. You have an oppor-
tunity to differentiate your prod-
ucts in the marketplace by abid-
ing by a simple idea: safe prod-
ucts sell. When it comes to sales,
if consumers believe that chemi-
cal-free products are safer, they
are!
Here’s some brief back-
ground. You are probably familiar
with the Consumer Product
Safety Improvement Act
(CPSIA) enforced by the
Consumer Product Safety
Commission. Many companies
have redesigned their products to
meet the CPSIA’s lead content
limits for all children’s products,
the limits for eight heavy metals
in toys, and the phthalate limits
for toys and child care articles.
For some promotional products
companies the CPSIA has not
presented an issue because they
do not sell children’s products.
But that freedom from chemical-
content regulation may last only
so long. Chemical content
requirements initially set for only
children’s products can, and often
do, come to impact all products.
BEAT THE CLOCK ON
CHEMICAL REGULATION
By David P. Callet
AUGUST 2016 •
PPB
• 69
PRODUCT
RESPONSIBILITY
THINK
Safe Products Sell