What information needs to be on the tracking labels?
What information has to be put on the label or alternatively, somewhere on the product and/or its packaging?
- the name of the manufacturer or private labeler
- the location of production (city, state/province, and country)
- the date of production OR a mark, such as a batch number or cohort number, that you can use to look up the date of production.
CPSC’s tracking label guidance tells us about tracking labels:
- they must be “permanent”
- they must be on the packaging and the product “to the extent practicable”
- they must have “marks” (i.e. letters, numbers, or signs) that allow the manufacturer to discern what batch the item belongs to and look up the origins of the materials
- the manufacturer must maintain a way to look up the origins of the materials based on the mark, e.g. a spreadsheet or database
- the information need not be all in one spot on the product, as long as it’s all on the product somewhere
- if the label on the product can be seen through the packaging, there is no need to also label the packaging
- the requirement is NOT RETROACTIVE, meaning that anything manufactured before August 14 DOES NOT have to be labeled
Certain products are exempt from labeling. If your product has more than one piece, not all pieces must be labeled.
Still working on labels and right now I’m at $3.20 per label…now to figure out if I should increase cost of item to cover some or all of this expense.
I am really having a hard time understanding this tracking labels requirement. For childrenswear, if the garment does not have any components which require testing do you still need to provide these tracking labels?
Do you know where I can see a sample of a label for children’s garment would look like? It seems that all of this info on a label inside of a garment is 1) going to make the label quite large and 2) quite costly.
Thanks so much for this website.
Maria Ana: Yes, you do have to put a tracking label on a garment, even if it doesn’t need third party testing. The tracking label part of the law is separate from the testing part. These are the only exceptions of things that don’t need tracking labels.
There are really only three things that have to be on the label: your company name, your location, and your choice of batch number or production date. You can add this information to your existing labels, if it’s not already on there. You can use any format that is permanent to label your garments: sew-in tags, iron-ons, even glue them in (if it’s permanent glue).
I’ve taken some pictures of my tracking labels on baby booties, and I’ll post them to my blog (Organic Baby Farm) when I have time. I’ll post a link on this site when I’ve got the post up. There’s a link to Organic Baby Farm on the left sidebar; I’ve posted there about my own tracking labels.
Maria Ana: the post with links to many different tracking label solutions is here.