Nearly 40 stores and online retailers were recently evaluated to determine the toxicity level in products sold to their customers, including companies in Santa Clarita.

Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, who works with retailers to phase out hazardous chemicals and transform the marketplace, published their findings within a latest report.

Some of the retailers included in the report were Target, Walmart, CVS, Aldi, McDonald’s, and Trader Joe’s.

Courtesy of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families

In 2015, researchers began publishing a report card on retailer actions to eliminate toxic chemicals from the products they carry.

Scientists revealed that chemicals like phthalates, toxic flame retardants, mercury, arsenic, and formaldehyde were found in products and product packing sold by retailers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines phthalates as a group of chemicals used to make plastics more flexible and harder to break.

The chemical is found to be present in the environment and exposure to the human body can lead to adverse human health effects, according to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency.

Tracy Gregoire, project coordinator for Learning Disabilities Association of America’s Healthy Children, says toxic chemical exposures can cause learning and developmental disabilities in 1 out of 6 children.

“Over a quarter of these disabilities are linked to toxic chemical exposures,” said Gregoire. “Prenatal and early childhood exposure to harmful chemicals in consumer products and food packaging can lead to lifelong impacts and chronic health conditions.”

Retailers that received a failing grade include Trader Joe’s, McDonald’s, Subway, Publix, Panera Bread, Macy’s, Ulta, Nordstrom, Office Depot, Dollar General, Sally Beauty and TJX Companies.

Mike Schade, campaign director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families says companies should do their part in providing safe products.

“Companies can prevent harm and protect public health by taking common sense steps to phase out toxic chemicals in everyday products,” said Schade. “Retailers have an important role to play — they have both the power and the moral responsibility to eliminate and safely replace toxic chemicals to ‘mind the store.’ They should stop letting chemical corporations put public health at risk.”

Courtesy of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families

This year, chain restaurants were also included for the first time and are reported to make “slow, but meaningful progress at improving the chemical safety of the products, food and packaging they sell,” according to the report.

Within the report, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Amazon were ranked “most improved” for 2018 with all three companies announcing sweeping chemical safety policies over the past two months.

Key Findings

According to the report, this year’s analysis reveals five key findings:

1. Retailers are making an effort to remove certain toxic chemicals from their products such as beauty and personal care products, along with sunscreens.
2. Retailers are strengthening or adopting new policies to address toxic chemicals.
   
3. Retailers are “aligning around a common list of chemicals of concern” — primarily the beauty and personal care list.
   
4. Food retailers, on the other hand, “seriously lag behind,” having been slow to adopt policies to reduce or eliminate known toxins such as phthalates and PFAS from their packaging and materials that come into contact with the food.
   
5. Despite progress, “too many” retailers are still not addressing the chemical safety of their products — “Almost half the retailers evaluated lacked even the most basic public chemicals policy,” the report states.

For more information on how to take action, click here.

KHTS FM 98.1 and AM 1220 is Santa Clarita’s only local radio station. KHTS mixes in a combination of news, traffic, sports, and features along with your favorite adult contemporary hits. Santa Clarita news and features are delivered throughout the day over our airwaves, on our website and through a variety of social media platforms. Our KHTS national award-winning daily news briefs are now read daily by 34,000+ residents. A vibrant member of the Santa Clarita community, the KHTS broadcast signal reaches all of the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of the high desert communities located in the Antelope Valley. The station streams its talk shows over the web, reaching a potentially worldwide audience. Follow @KHTSRadio on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.