Report Card: Is Your Retail Store Keeping Your Family Safe From Harmful Toxins?

As you know, in the U.S. toxic chemicals do not have the kind of testing and oversight that we’d like to see in this country, especially from the Food & Drug Administration. That means we can find unsafe chemicals in our beauty products, bath products and even the baby products we buy from trusted stores. However, even when chemicals are in question, retailers can take it upon themselves to do the right thing. The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families’ Mind the Store campaign has just released the first report card evaluating retailers who have taken action to eliminate harmful toxins in their products – and those who have not. They researched 11 retail companies, and assigned each a letter grade based on different actions they could take to ensure that they are carrying nontoxic products. These actions cover important steps like policies, oversight, transparency and implementation.

The Most Toxic Retailers 

Unfortunately, no retailers scored an “A” grade, and several fell well below a good score. Three retailers scored a grade of “F”:

• Albertsons / Safeway
• COSTCO Wholesale
• Amazon

Let’s take a deeper look at the failing policies or actions that contributed to these failing grades.

As one of the largest food and drug retailers in the country, Albertsons (which includes Safeway) could be leading the charge in terms of safety. Instead, they have the 3^rd lowest grade on Safer Chemical’s list. Let’s see why.

• Albertsons has a corporate manager who has some responsibility for product safety related to chemical hazards in products.
• They have no written safer chemicals policy.
• They’ve taken no discernible action on disclosure of ingredients that goes beyond OSHA Safety Data requirements / compliance.
• The company has reported some progress in reducing the use of BPA in canned foods and stated they are “working with our Own Brand product suppliers to identify acceptable alternatives to packaging containing BPA. It is our desire as a company to use BPA- free packaging for as many products as possible.” They are transitioning packaging and products as new options become commercially available, including eliminating BPA-containing register paper. However, the company has not disclosed a time-frame or plan for completely eliminating and safely substituting BPA in canned foods.
• There is no discernible approach or public commitment to safer alternatives. A recent report documented regrettable substitutes in BPA-free cans such as vinyl and styrene based resins, demonstrating that Albertsons must develop a plan to evaluate alternatives when eliminating or reducing chemicals of high concern to avoid regrettable substitutes such as these.
• They’ve made no public disclosure of policy, no restricted substances list, or approach to ingredient disclosure.
• There have made no discernible progress on chemical footprint.
• Albertsons (Safeway) sells some private label cleaning products that are Safer Choice certified.
• Albertsons responded in writing to a survey on BPA in food packaging from the campaign in 2015, but has been unresponsive to follow-up communications and reasonable requests to meet.
• They have neither a safer chemicals policy nor a program to promote safer products in stores and/or on website in place.
• There is no known participation in the collaborative process to promote safer chemicals.

COSTCO is loved by many green consumers for offering a wide variety of organic foods in bulk, but it received one of the worst grades on this list for having no policies regarding harmful toxins in their products.

• Costco has a corporate manager who has some responsibility for product safety related to chemical hazards in products.
• This retailer has no written safer chemicals policy.
• They’ve taken no discernible action on disclosure of ingredients that goes beyond OSHA Safety Data requirements / compliance.
• There has been no documented progress in reducing or eliminating chemicals of high concern within the last three years.
• There are no public criteria available on whether they evaluate safer alternatives or avoid regrettable substitutes.
• They have no public disclosure of policy, restricted substances list, or approach to ingredient disclosure.
• There have made no discernible progress on chemical footprint.
• Costco sells some private label cleaning products that are Safer Choice certified.
• A dialogue with Mind the Store campaign is ongoing regarding safer chemicals, though it is limited to periodic conversation.
• No Safer Chemicals policy is in place.
• They have neither a safer chemicals policy nor a program to promote safer products in stores and/or on website in place.
• There is no known participation in the collaborative process to promote safer chemicals.

Popular for its Amazon Prime option, this big retailer focuses more on offering everything than on offering safer options. They are on track to become one of the largest retailers of electronics and apparel in the U.S., but with the lowest grade of all, Amazon has a long way to go to removing harmful toxins from their shelves.

• Amazon has a sustainability team that has some responsibility for product safety related to chemical hazards, given the introduction of the Amazon Elements line of products. The introduction of this team garnered them only 4 out of a possible 15 points from Safer Chemicals.
• Amazon has no written safer chemicals policy.
• They’ve taken no discernible action on disclosure of ingredients that goes beyond OSHA Safety Data requirements / compliance.
• Amazon Elements Baby Wipes do not contain phthalates, parabens, the formaldehyde donor bronopol, methylisothiazolinone (MIT) or dyes. The labels disclose ingredients and important information about them and also have a code that customers can scan through a smartphone to track its specific ingredients, “best by” dates and other key data. However, these actions only earned Amazon a handful of points when Safer Chemicals evaluated their overall commitment to reducing concerning chemical, transparency and public disclosure.
• There are no public criteria available on whether they evaluate safer alternatives or avoid regrettable substitutes.
• There have made no discernible progress on chemical footprint.
• They have not made discernible progress on credible third party safer chemicals standards.
• They have no safer chemicals policy in place.
• They have neither a safer chemicals policy nor a program to promote safer products in stores and/or on website in place.
• There is no known participation in the collaborative process to promote safer chemicals.

What’s troubling is that these companies appear not to be moving forward in these areas in any significant way. Where they have gone forward, they appear to be stalled and unwilling to take any major steps towards creating policies and timeframes to get safer chemicals in place.

Which Retailers Are Doing The Right Thing

Rocking the top of the Safer Chemicals list with a grade of “B” are companies that might surprise you: Target and Walmart. What exactly are these companies doing?

According to Safer Chemicals, “Target has developed the most robust criteria for evaluating suppliers’ disclosure practices.” They have even created a way to evaluate fragrance ingredients, commonly a highly regarded “trade secret” in the industry.

While Target is not banning all these products, they are evaluating suppliers using a point scoring system. They will be “rewarding” high point earners with incentives like product placement and featured items. 

The Harmful Toxins Target Is Rejecting

Target developed its own “Sustainable Product Index” in 2013, which has been expanded twice, once in 2015 and again in 2016. This index includes the following types of products:

• personal care
• baby care
• cleaning products
• cosmetics

With over 2000 chemicals on its “flagged” list, we can’t list every chemical. However, here are some key harmful toxins that Target wants to flag and encourage its suppliers to remove:

• The nearly “600 substances on Health Canada’s roster of prohibited cosmetic ingredients,” reports Bloomberg.
• Chemicals that are currently banned from cosmetics in the European Union (but not in the U.S.).
• It’s worthwhile to note that Target added triclosan to this list before the FDA banned this ingredient from antibacterial soap. Hopefully, Target’s index will push companies to ban this ingredient from other items that contain it, like certain toothpaste products.

While Target did not get an “A”, and still has a little room for improvement, their comprehensive list of questionable products is impressive. Let’s hope they work harder with their suppliers to get more safe products on the shelves…and help their brands to make their ingredients safer.

Some might be surprised to discover that Wal-Mart Stores, which include Walmart and Sam’s Club, received the highest score of ANY retailer evaluated – good news for those on a tight budget or in areas where Walmart is the only nearby store. In 2013, they developed their own “Sustainable Chemistry Policy”, followed in 2014 by their “Sustainable Chemistry Implementation Guide”. In 2016, they reported “significant progress in implementing its policy.”

How are they reaching those goals? With strong policies that state, “All suppliers are expected to reduce, restrict and eliminate use of priority chemicals using informed substitution principles.” Additionally, in 2016 they provided their suppliers with their “Sustainable Packaging Playbook” to help them improve the sustainability of their packaging.

The Harmful Toxins Walmart Is Rejecting

Walmart’s list contains 16 “high priority” chemicals and over 2,000 priority “chemicals of concern”, which include the following product types:

• cleaning products
• cosmetics
• personal care products
• infant products
• pet supplies

According to Consumerist, some of the harmful toxins they are encouraging their suppliers to remove include:

• Parabens from cosmetics
• Nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) from laundry detergent and other items
• Formaldehyde
• Phthalates
• Toluene which can be found in nail polish as well as other products

In fact, in the summer of 2016, The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) put together a number of pieces on Walmart’s initiative, including “Is Walmart a Leader on Safer Chemicals?” Their conclusion? Walmart’s policies in this area hit every one of EDF’s standards. While their implementation of these standards has not been perfect, they are well on their way.

So if you shop at COSTCO, Albertsons or Amazon, you may want to consider changing over to stores that are moving forward to remove harmful toxins from their shelves and bring safer chemicals to their customers. With extremely accessible stores like Target and Walmart  leading the way, the choice is simple.