“Attn. LG, I was told by LG customer support to write to your environmental office at lg.environmental.lge.com with specific questions about Prop 65 warnings on this refrigerator and the air filter inside. They have not responded in a MONTH yet.”
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Proposition 65 became law in the state of California in 1986. This law requires California to annually publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive harm and it requires businesses to provide warnings to Californians about significant exposure to chemicals that can cause risk of cancer. This list of chemicals, which has to be updated once a year, has grown to approximately 900 chemicals (1) and features a wide arrange of chemicals and substances. If you're familiar with Prop 65 warnings, you're probably not surprised to see it on products in a hardware store, but you will also find it on food and beverages. But the reason certain chemicals appear in products can be a little more complicated, and makes more sense, than you might think. Take acrylamide for instance: it's on the Prop 65 list as a cancer-causing chemical but it can form naturally on the surface of certain plant-based foods after it's been browned during cooking at high temperatures. Products containing ingredients like roasted coffee or nuts, toast, or breakfast cereals might warrant a Prop 65 warning if acrylamide levels are high enough, even though the chemical wasn't intentionally added. Some other common substances of concern include arsenic in rice or seaweed, BPA in plastic or can linings, cadmium in fish or vegetables, lead in supplements or vitamins, and mercury in fish. Simply put, the warning means that the manufacturer believes the product might contain any of the 900-plus chemicals that the State of California considers harmful. It does not mean that the labeled products themselves are necessarily harmful or are in violation of any safety standard. Many of the chemicals that are included under the warning have been routinely used in many everyday items -- such as drugs, dyes, food, additives, solvents, and pesticides -- for years, all without documented harm. Most built-in refrigerator filters, including these air filters that you are inquiring about that use a coconut shell activated carbon filter, use activated carbon as a filtration medium. Proposition 65 also requires any company doing business in California to notify California consumers about the presence of a Proposition 65-listed chemical in any product the company is offering for sale in California. Proposition 65 does not ban the sale of a product that contains a listed chemical; it simply requires that the product have a “clear and reasonable” warning notice on it...^Ivan
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