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December 2, 2024Communities Urge Dollar Stores to Remove Toxic Products from Shelves During Nationwide Pre-Holiday “Week of Action”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 2 - 8, 2024
MEDIA CONTACT: Shayna Samuels, shayna@ripplestrategies.com, 718-541-4785
Communities Urge Dollar Stores to Remove Toxic Products from Shelves During Nationwide Pre-Holiday “Week of Action”
Customers to Visit Dollar Generals and Dollar Trees Demanding Safer Products
During the week of December 2 - 8, 2024, communities in 30 states nationwide, with the support of health and environmental justice organizations, will organize actions at Dollar Stores to demand products free of toxic chemicals. This holiday season week of action follows on the heels of last month’s Toxic Free Future’s Retailer Report Card, which graded Dollar General with a D+ and Dollar Tree with D for safety, based on hazardous chemicals in products. This week is part of a greater campaign that has spanned over a decade, yet Dollar General and Dollar Tree continue to fall further behind their competitors on these issues critical to customers and investors.
A recent study found that 53% of products sold at Dollar Stores contained one or more hazardous chemicals of concern. This included lead found in tablecloths, jewelry, and baby toys with known links to brain development; phthalates found in products such as school supplies, silly straws and bath toys with links to early puberty in girls, birth defects in the male reproductive system, obesity, diabetes and other health issues; BPA in receipts, cookware and can linings which can affect the brain and prostate gland of fetuses, infants, and children; and PFAS found in popcorn bags which can affect immune system and liver function.
“Dollar Stores must phase out many more toxic chemicals from products immediately, and expand to national brands. They must also be much more transparent about what progress they are or are not making,” said José Bravo, National Coordinator at the Campaign for Healthier Solutions. “Their customers are largely low-income families and communities of color who are already disproportionately impacted by industrial pollution, and the cumulative impacts of these chemicals are causing unnecessary health risks.”
In 2023, Dollar General's net sales were over $38 billion, and Dollar Tree's revenues were over $30 billion. They are often the only stores selling essential household goods, including food, in many rural towns and urban neighborhoods, leaving many customers with no other options. The stores are frequently located in communities that already face multiple health and environmental risk factors.
The Campaign for Healthier Solutions, Coming Clean, the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Learning Disabilities Association of America, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club Delta Chapter, the National Resources Defense Council, and Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, are among the groups participating in the week of action. Events, including protests and hand-delivering letters to store management, are planned in cities nationwide including Boston, Houston, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. Groups will also engage in social media campaigns with the hashtags #nontoxicdollarstores, #dollarstore, #discountstore. Please click here for a full list of how to take action.
For nearly a decade, the nation’s largest dollar stores have failed to meaningfully strengthen their chemical policies and intervene in their supply chains to keep their shoppers safe from substances linked to learning disabilities, cancer, and reproductive harm. Dollar General failed to expand its list of restricted substances, which does not include PFAS, most phthalates, and many other chemicals known to cause harm. Similarly, Dollar Tree has not publicly documented progress on reducing chemicals or plastics of high concern in the last four years and has made no indication of support for the development or sale of safer products.
Despite this, Mike Creedon, interim Chief Executive Officer for Dollar Tree claims, “Safety First, Safety Always is the guiding mantra for our store.” Earlier this year Dollar Tree knowingly kept lead-contaminated apple sauce on its shelves, putting children in harm's way.
There is a growing movement by mainstream retail and manufacturing brands to respond to consumer demand for safer products with publicly available corporate policies. Walmart, for example, disclosed that they removed 37 million pounds of phthalates from products and reported publicly on timelines, metrics, and progress.
Communities are demanding that Dollar General and Dollar Tree/Family Dollar:
- Transparently report on progress in removing BPA, lead, phthalates and other harmful chemicals from their private-label products;
- Publish the results of their Chemical Footprint surveys (the “total mass of chemicals of high concern used by an event, organization, service, building, or product”);
- Commit to working with its suppliers to prevent all known dangerous chemicals from being part of products sold on store shelves, including both private label and national products.
- Expand chemical policies to cover more categories of products and more chemicals known to cause harm.
“All families deserve to feel safe while shopping this holiday season,” said Suguet López, Executive Director for Líderes Campesinas. “Nobody should have to worry if a baby toy, silly straw or bag of popcorn sold at a Dollar Store is filled with toxic chemicals. Safer products exist and should be sold in our communities, period.”
“Dollar Stores have the potential to impact millions of customers in a positive way by replacing harmful chemicals with safe alternatives,” said Deyadira Arellano, Community Organizer for the Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, a group working to create more sustainable and environmentally healthy communities in Texas. “Families deserve transparency and action now.”
“Developmental disabilities including ADHD and autism have reached epidemic proportions, now affecting 1 in 6 children,” said Tracy Gregoire, Healthy Children Project Director for the Learning Disabilities Association of America. “Chemicals that can harm children’s brain health and learning potential, including phthalates and heavy metals like lead, should not be in any product. Dollar stores have the power and responsibility to ensure all of their products are free of these and other harmful chemicals.”
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