Is your favorite retailer failing you?
A new report from Toxic-Free Future, a non-profit consumer product safety organization, found that most retailers in the United States and Canada have no difficulty when it comes to ensuring that the products they sell are made with the safest chemicals and materials on the market. .
So how did your favorite brands fare on the Retailer Report Card? Of the 50 they evaluated, only 4 received “As” and 17 outliers were dropped entirely.
“With PFAS in our drinking water and toxins found in black plastic straws, it’s shocking how little retailers are doing to help solve this health crisis related to dangerous chemicals and plastics in consumer products, ” Cheri Peele, senior project manager for Toxic-Free. The future, says a press release.
Mike Schade, director of the Mind the Store program at Toxic-Free Future, added: “Simply banning toxic chemicals is not enough. Retailers must go further to ensure that substitutions are truly safer for consumers , communities and workers”.
Since 2016, the Retailer Report Card of the Toxic-Free Future has provided consumers with an extensive assessment of retailer policies and programs related to hazardous chemicals and plastics.
The latest report evaluated the practices and policies of the 50 largest retailers in the United States and Canada, a broad group representing 160 businesses and over 200,000 points of sale that sell billions of dollars in products.
Because of their size, Toxic Free Futures argues that these retailers hold the market power to seek out and remove toxic chemicals and plastics from the supply chain.
The average grade recorded was D+, with chain restaurants and dollar stores ranking the lowest. Of the retailers evaluated, a surprising 17 earned a failing grade, earning them a place in the “Toxic Hall of Shame.”
Who failed?
Top offenders earning F include Chipotle, Subway, Trader Joe’s, Publix, McDonald’s, Macy’s, 7-Eleven, Five Below, LL Flooring (Lumber Liquidators), Nordstrom, Sally Beauty, Sherwin-Williams and Sobeys, a supermarket chain in Canada.
Also getting an F is Inspire Brands, the parent company for Arby’s, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin’, Jimmy John’s and Sonic, as well as Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.
Ahold Delhaize, which owns Stop & Shop, and Alimentation Couche-Tard, which owns Circle K, also fell.
But there is good news
On the bright side, four retailers — Apple, Sephora, Target and Walmart — passed with flying colors, earning an A. Meanwhile, Whole Foods Market, IKEA and Ulta earned a B ranking.
Ulta also received high marks for improvement as the brand doubled its score from 2021 to 2024, proving that progress is possible.
Amazon landed in the middle ground with a C grade.
The organization also found that more than half of the retailers they analyzed are banning certain hazardous chemicals and harmful plastics, while 68% are reducing things like PVC and PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”
Judgment criteria
Each of these brands was evaluated on the metric and their combined scores determined their final grades.
The first is a corporate commitment to the reduction and elimination of potentially hazardous chemicals and plastics through external collaboration, participation in the chemical trail project, and public policy support.
Next, the toxic-free future values transparency between retailers and suppliers. The agency explained that most products – with the exception of cosmetics, cleaning products and toiletries – do not contain a list of chemical ingredients.
“It is alarming that more than half of the companies in the Retailer Report Card do not require ingredient information from suppliers,” said Caroline Boden, director of shareholder protection at Mercy Investment Services.
“This lack of transparency puts consumers, businesses and shareholders at risk.”
They also looked at whether retailers have “banned the bad” or adopted minimum criteria for safer chemicals and implemented “safer solutions” – consider alternatives to chemicals and plastics of deep concern and invest in implementing substitutes safer.
Spending thoughts
“It’s no coincidence that this report is being released in the middle of the holiday shopping season … when most retailers make a lot of money,” report co-author Schade told CNN.
“We want to relay this information to consumers so that they can make more informed purchasing decisions,” but also so that retailers understand that we will hold them accountable if they don’t take meaningful action to dangerous chemicals and plastics in the products they sell.”
Last month, protesters made headlines to demand an end to the injection of “harmful additives” into US batches of Kellogg’s cereal products.
This measures Retailers’ commitment to eliminating chemicals and plastics on the Ban the Bad List, including PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” microscopic, man-made compounds that the body cannot break down, and PVC, otherwise known as “poisonous plastic”.
Health experts have only recently begun to explore the harmful “and potentially carcinogenic” properties of PFAS, which have been discovered around the world and at every level of the food chain.
Research has suggested that they can lead to disorders such as cancer, thyroid disease, liver damage, fertility problems, increased cholesterol levels, obesity and hormonal disorders.
One of the most common sources of exposure to PFAS is food packaging, where it is used to make the packaging resistant to heat, grease and water.
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