Policy & Compliance

⚠️ WARNING

Use of certain Roman Inc. products can expose you to chemicals, including lead and lead compounds, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and phthalates (including DEHP and/or DINP) and bisphenol A (BPA), which are known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.

In 1986, California voters approved the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, known as Proposition 65 or "Prop 65." The purpose of Proposition 65 is to ensure that people are informed about exposure to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.

Any company with ten or more employees that operates in or sells products into the State of California must comply with Proposition 65's requirements. To comply, businesses are: (1) prohibited from knowingly discharging listed chemicals into sources of drinking water; and (2) required to provide a "clear and reasonable" warning before knowingly and intentionally exposing anyone to a listed chemical.

Proposition 65 requires the Governor of California to maintain and publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, and/or other reproductive harm. That list, updated annually, now includes more than 1,000 chemicals — including several that are commonly found in trace amounts in decorative giftware, figurines, packaging materials, and finished goods across the giftware and collectibles industry.

Roman Inc. manufactures and distributes gift and collectible items — including hand-painted resin and polyresin figurines, ornaments, nativity sets, snow globes and glitterdomes, and related packaging — through overseas and domestic supply partners.

As with virtually all painted, finished, or packaged consumer goods, it remains possible that trace amounts of lead below applicable federal reporting thresholds could be present in paints, glazes, finishes, or metal components. Bisphenol A (BPA) could conceivably be present in minute amounts in plastic bases, packaging film, adhesives, or labels, and phthalates (DEHP and/or DINP) could possibly be found in PVC-based packaging, gift bags, cords, or components used in lighted or musical items.

Unlike other federal or international standards, Prop 65 does not set a specific reporting threshold for these substances. Instead, it requires a business to demonstrate with certainty that there is "no significant risk" resulting from exposure.

For carcinogens, the "no significant risk level" is defined as the level calculated to result in no more than one additional case of cancer in 100,000 individuals exposed at that level every day for 70 years.

For reproductive toxicants, the "no significant risk level" is defined as the level of exposure that, even if multiplied by 1,000, would not be expected to produce birth defects or other reproductive harm — in other words, a level far below any dose associated with observable harm in humans or test animals.

Proposition 65 does not clarify whether exposure should be measured only during normal, intended use of a product, or also in the event of foreseeable misuse (such as damaging, burning, or ingesting a product or its components), and Roman Inc. has not separately attempted to model exposure under such misuse scenarios.

A Proposition 65 warning means one of two things: (1) the business has evaluated the exposure and concluded it may exceed the "no significant risk level"; or (2) the business has chosen to provide a warning based on its knowledge that a listed chemical may be present, without separately modeling exposure.

As the California government itself has clarified: the presence of a Proposition 65 warning does not, by itself, mean a product is unsafe. Proposition 65 is best understood as a "right to know" law, not a product safety standard.

In the interest of full compliance with California law, and to honor our customers' right to know, Roman Inc. provides this warning based on our awareness that products across the giftware and collectibles industry can, in some instances, contain trace amounts of the substances described above.

Roman Inc. has elected to place Proposition 65 warning labels on applicable products and their packaging, and to publish this statement on our website.

For further information about California's Proposition 65, please visit California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) .