Few product disruptions as New York’s 1,4-dioxane waivers expire this month
Local NGO says law has led to safer products sold in state and across the US
CHEMICAL WATCH NEWS | 18 December 2025
Companies in New York appear to be on track to meet the state’s 1,4-dioxane limits for cleaners and cosmetics, as final waivers issued under the law are due to expire later this month. While questions may remain for some companies about the information required to demonstrate compliance, local NGO groups say the results show that the state’s law has been effective in driving reformulation and has even helped reduce the presence of the solvent in products sold outside of New York. That playbook, according to some public health campaigners, could be used in the future to phase out other problematic chemicals, such as PFAS. New York approved the 1,4-dioxane limits in a 2019 law that sought to control water contamination by restricting the amount of the solvent that could be present in household cleaners, personal care products and cosmetics. The solvent can occur in these goods as a byproduct of the ethoxylation process used to make surfactants.Under the law, cleaning and personal care products cannot contain more than 1ppm of 1,4 dioxane, with non-cleaning cosmetics capped at 10ppm. A final rule adopted by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) last year codified a waiver process for products that could not initially meet the state limits. According to the DEC, more than 1,500 products received waivers in 2023, after the first restrictions took effect. That number dropped to just below 1,100 waivers in 2024. This year, only six companies had waivers, covering a total of 14 products.
Ensuring compliance
The dwindling number of waivers reflects how manufacturers have been able to work with suppliers to gradually meet the state’s limits, according to industry groups. “Companies have worked internally and with their supply chains to ensure continued compliance with New York’s
regulations,” the Household and Commercial Products Association (HCPA) told Chemical Watch News & Insight. “We are not aware of any instances in which companies were unable to reformulate products to meet compliance and instead removed products from the New York market,” the organisation said. Meanwhile, some questions remain about demonstrating compliance, the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) said. Brennan Georgianni, ACI’s associate vice president for government affairs and strategy, said that while the DEC has indicated that documentation from raw materials suppliers may be accepted to demonstrate compliance, “it remains unclear whether the information typically provided by suppliers will be sufficient”, he said. In addition, Georgianni said questions remain about “how manufacturers are expected to determine what variation can be reasonably anticipated, and how that determination may align with the department’s own sampling and analysis, should it occur”. The DEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the 1,4-dioxane programme.
‘Sign of success’
Bobbi Wilding, executive director of the New York-based NGO Clean+Healthy, said the decline in the need for waivers “is a real sign of success for this programme”. “It’s clear that giving companies an offramp has been helpful,” she said, referring to the waiver process. Now, with that process coming to a close, consumers will know that the items they are buying do not include this harmful chemical, she said. According to Wilding, New York’s law followed a familiar pattern with chemical restrictions. During initial policy debates for new laws or regulations, she said, some industry opponents argue “it can’t be done, and then when it becomes law, they do it”. Adrienne Esposito, executive director for Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE), offered similar comments. While some industry stakeholders said the law could lead to price increases or manufacturers pulling products from New York shelves, “none of what they predicted came true”, Esposito said.
Regulation can ‘incentivise’ action
Esposito said she initially was “speechless” after seeing some of the 1,4-dioxane levels in the DEC’s first list of product waivers. While most companies that received waivers in 2023 reported products with 1,4-dioxane levels that were only a few ppm above the legal limit, a handful indicated levels over 100ppm. After the law took effect, Esposito said CCE had a variety of products independently tested. The results showed that some products saw a nearly 70-fold reduction in 1,4-dioxane levels in 2024, compared to 2019. Companies just “needed to be incentivised” to reformulate their products, she said. Manufacturers are not going to miss out on the New York market, she said. “That’s why New York can be a leader” in chemicals management. Looking ahead to 2026, Esposito said her organisation will once again push lawmakers to adopt legislation to prohibit intentionally added PFAS in a variety of product categories. A bill to do just that (SB 187) passed the state Senate in 2025 but did not clear the state Assembly.
Terry Hyland Senior editor – North America
Chemical Watch News & Insight
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NYDEC 1,4-dioxane webpage
Spreadsheet of waivers
CCE report on 1,4-dioxane in products
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