My guest today is Mike Schade, Mind the Store Campaign Director at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. The Mind the Store campaign works with the nation’s leading retailers on creating comprehensive chemicals policy. For the previous eight years, Mike was the Markets Campaign Coordinator with the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ), a national environmental health organization where he led national campaigns to phase out PVC plastic, phthalates, BPA and dioxin. Prior to CHEJ, he was the Western New York Director of Citizens’ Environmental Coalition. Ethisphere Magazine listed Mike as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics for 2007 and the PVC Campaign received two awards from the Business Ethics Network. www.saferchemicals.org
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
What Major Retailers Are Doing (or Not) to Reduce Toxic Chemicals in the Products They Sell
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Mike Schade
Date of Broadcast: March 26, 2014
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and how to live toxic free.
It’s Wednesday, March 26th 2014. And I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. And today, we’re going to be talking about what major retailers are doing (or not doing) to reduce toxic chemicals in the products that they sell.
For the past year, there’s been a campaign called Mind the Store. It’s being done by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. And they’ve been asking the major retailers in America to remove certain toxic chemicals from the store shelves, so that we don’t have to be reading all the labels. We can just know that these products are safe.
And today, I have the campaign director of this campaign here to tell us about what’s going on. His name is Mike Schade from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
Hi Mike!
MIKE SCHADE: Hey, Debra. Thanks for having me.
DEBRA: Now, Mike has been on before. Some of you might remember him. He was on for the Center for Environmental Health Injustice. Did I get all those words in the right order?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Actually, it’s the Center for Health and Environmental Justice.
DEBRA: Health and Environmental Justice, right.
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah.
DEBRA: And he is now over at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families during the Mind the Store campaign.
Mike, tell us about the campaign.
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, great. Well, thanks again for having me. It’s always a pleasure to come on your show. I really appreciate it.
DEBRA: Thank you.
MIKE SCHADE: So, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families…
DEBRA: Just give us the general idea of it. And then we’ll talk about it in great detail.
MIKE SCHADE: So, we’re a broad coalition of public health organizations, environmental organizations, advocates for people with developmental disabilities, reproductive health advocates and others that are united about our concern about toxic chemicals in our homes, schools and places of work—and most importantly, the products we use every day, products we bring in our homes (cosmetics, cleaning products, plastics, you name it).
And in recent years, some of the most effective ways that, here in the United States, have taken action to address chemicals of concern is through the actions of major corporations, huge Fortune 500 companies.
So Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families launched the Mind the Store campaign with the recognition that major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and others really have the power and the moral responsibility to ensure that the products that they sell are safe and healthy and non-toxic.
So, we launched the Mind the Store campaign to challenge major US retailers, the top 10 retailers with the biggest market share to get tough on toxic chemicals and to work with their suppliers and their vendors to eliminate the worst of the worst chemicals and the product that they sell, what we call the Hazardous 100 List of Chemicals of High Concern. And these are chemicals that are linked to cancer, birth defect, asthma, and other serious health problems that affect our communities across the country.
DEBRA: Thank you.
So, I had a question. It’s on the tip of my tongue. And now I forgot what it was.
Okay! So, you started out—I know that Washington Toxics Coalition did a report that had showed where a lot of chemical hazards were in the products. Why don’t you start by telling us about that report? Wasn’t that the beginning of this campaign?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah! So, as you know, because unfortunately our federal chemical safety system is broken, many states have been forced to figure out how to deal with this challenge of dangerous chemicals and products in our environment.
So, in recent years, the number of states—most notably, the states of California, Maine and Washington—have passed pieces of legislation that begin to comprehensively address the problems of chemicals in the environment. So, we’re not just banning or restricting one chemical at a time. These states have passed more comprehensive approaches to chemical policy.
Back in 2008, the state of Washington passed a landmark piece of legislation called The Children Safe Products Act. This is a law that requires manufacturers and retailers to disclose to the state of California whether products that they sell in the state of California contains chemicals of high concern for children.
DEBRA: Wait, wait! Washington?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, this is the state of Washingtont, that’s right.
DEBRA: Yeah, you said California.
MIKE SCHADE: Oh, I’m sorry, the state of Washington. And this is back in 2008. And so if you are a company that sells a product to the state of Washington, you need to report whether this product contains one of these 66 chemicals of high concern. This includes chemicals like formaldehyde, bisphenol-A, phthalates, flame retardants and many of the other well-known bad guys.
So, in the past couple of years, companies have begun to report in accordance with this law. And we just co-published a report with our friends at the Washington Toxics Coalition which found that, as a result of this reporting law, companies are reporting chemicals of high concern in all sorts of consumer products. There were over 4600 reports of toxic chemicals in children’s products.
For example, they found formaldehyde in children’s table wear and dangerous flame retardants in car seats and toys.
And so, this just goes to show you how chemicals of high concern are widespread in products that we purchase, in products for our children. And of course, many of these chemicals in products were being reported by major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target.
So, if you go to our friends at the Washington Toxics Coalition, their website, you can actually download this report. And the website is WAToxics.org.
I think it’s important because this report just shows how widespread this problem is and also how important it is for retailers to clean up their act and get touch on toxic chemicals in products that they sell, and also how, unfortunately, government regulation is—while the state of Washington is playing a significant leadership role in requiring disclosure of chemicals of concern, it’s clear that the Washington state can’t do it alone and we need other states. Most importantly, we need the federal government to act and to regulate dangerous chemicals in products, particularly those for children and infants.
DEBRA: I completely agree, yes. I’ve been reporting to consumers for the past 30+ years about the toxic chemicals I can identify in products and saying, “Here are some products that don’t contain those chemicals.” And so consumer can make those choices.
And I would say that over the last 30 years, there definitely has been an increase in toxic-free products available for consumers to choose. But we also need to have, at every level—at the retailer level, at the manufacturer level, at the government level—everybody needs to be saying, “We need to get rid of these toxic chemicals.”
I mean, if you really think about it, the most dangerous thing in the world is we’re all trying to take vitamins and eat well and exercise and do all these things for our health, but there are so many toxic chemicals that we can’t control because they’re there at levels that we don’t have any control over.
And so, everybody needs to say, “At the level that I’m at, whether I’m a retailer or a manufacturer, a government employee or a consumer,” each one of us needs to say, “How can I reduce toxic chemicals where I am?” I think it’s excellent that you’re doing this.
So, when we come back, I want to ask you a question. We’re very close to the break, so I don’t want you to get started. But when we come back, we’re going to talk about the toxic chemicals, the Hazardous 100, and what kinds of things you can do.
We’re going to talk about the top 10 retailers that are being targeted in this campaign and how they are responding (or not) and all different kinds of things that you can do.
If you want to go to the Mind the Store website, you can just go to SaferChemicals.org, and right there on their home page, there’s a little button that says Mind the Store. You just click on that, and that’ll take you to all the different information that’s coming up.
So, we’re almost there. I watch the clock. We just have to go with the break. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Mike Schade. He’s the Mind the Store campaign director at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
And we’ll be right back!
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Mike Schade. He’s the campaign director of Mind the Store at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. And their website is SaferChemicals.org.
Mike, this whole thing is based on a list you call The Hazardous 100+ which is a list of chemicals that you’ve given to these retailers where you’re saying, “We don’t want these chemicals in products on store shelves.”
So, can you tell us how the Hazardous 100 Chemicals List was developed?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, thank you. I’d be happy to.
So, we’ve developed this list for a couple of different reasons, a couple of different ways. One of the key reasons we developed this list is because, over the past 10 years, manufacturers and retailers had gone about addressing chemicals of concern in almost like a whack-a-mole fashion where they will restrict or ban one chemical, and then a few months later, another one is in the media.
This has been effective to a certain extent in getting, for example, BPA out of baby bottles and lead out of kids’ toys and phthalates out of baby products. But it really fails to address chemicals of concern in a more comprehensive fashion.
If you look at the scope of the problem with over 85,000 chemicals on the market, we really needed to begin addressing chemicals in a more systematic and widespread approach.
So, we develop the Hazardous 100 list as a way to give retailers and manufacturers a starting place to work from. It represents a small subset of inherently hazardous chemicals of concern to which people, children, pregnant women, families, are regularly being exposed to.
We developed this list by looking at different authoritative government agencies across the country and across the world and what have they identified as chemicals of high concern. As we mentioned earlier, states have really been at the forefront of regulating and addressing chemicals, dangerous chemicals in products.
And over the past five or ten years, a number of states has developed a list of chemicals of concern—the states of California, Washington, Maine, Minnesotta. The USCTA has developed a [00:12:12] substances that they’re concerned about. And in Europe, there’s a law called REACH where they’ve identified chemicals of high concern that are subject to eventual regulation and phase-out.
So, basically, what we did is we combined all these different lists together, these different state, federal and international list, and then we looked at where are chemicals commonly found on these lists. If a chemical shows up on at least two of these lists, we added them to the Hazardous 100 list.
And then, we also added some additional chemicals, chemicals that perhaps the government agency hasn’t identified yet, but we know are problematic—for example, perfluorinated chemicals which are used in Teflon.
So, that’s how we came up with this list. And what we’re doing is we’re encouraging retailers and manufacturers to work with our suppliers to eliminate the Hazardous 100 List of Chemicals of High Concern. And if you go to our website at SaferChemicals.org, you can download and check out the list and see examples of some of the chemicals that are on that list.
DEBRA: I think it’s a great list. When we did a show on this before last year, I downloaded the list. I’ve been looking at the list and considering what I can do from my viewpoint as a consumer advocate to be identifying safer alternatives to those chemicals.
One of the things that I came up with—I mean, first of all, this is the place to start. I remember many, many years ago, when I was looking at how could I reduce my own personal exposure to toxic chemicals, the first thing that I did was to try to identify what the toxic chemicals were that I wanted to not be exposed to.
And at that time—I’ve said this many times on this show—and at that time, I’ve identified 40 chemicals. But that was way back in—what was it—1882. We didn’t have all the information that we have today at about what are the toxic chemicals.
But I identified 40 and I did a really good job of finding where those 40 chemicals were and finding alternatives.
But I also say that it seem to me that what I’ve learned over the years was that if you just kind of jump out of the chemical way of doing things—for example, instead of eating industrial food, eating organic food—you’re not just eliminating one of those toxic chemicals, you’re eliminating a whole set of them.
And so, I’m always looking for how can we jump to what is the non-toxic thing to do. You see what I’m saying?
MIKE SCHADE: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah! I mean, thankfully, there are simple steps that we can take as consumers to significantly reduce our exposure to chemicals of concern. So, like you said, there are things you can do like, for example, eating local foods that you buy say at farmer’s market or from a local grocer instead of buying pesticide-laden foods. So yeah, there’s definitely things that you can do.
And actually, on our website, we actually have a list of top tips that you can do to keep toxic chemicals at bay.
So it’s true that, as consumers, we can definitely take action. But on the other hand, we can’t just shop our way out of this problem. We really need retailers and manufacturers to step up, and we also need the government to step up and do their job and restrict and eliminate chemicals when we know that they’re linked to cancer and birth defects and other serious health problems—especially when we know that there are safer alternatives available.
DEBRA: I totally agree! So, why is it then that retailers aren’t just saying, “Well, for example, we could eliminate a lot of pesticides if we offer organic food.” I know some retailers are doing that. But why aren’t they just saying, “Well, okay, let’s just jump on the bandwagon and do this”?
The alternatives are there. It’s not like each retailer needs to go through and say, “How can I eliminate each one of these 100 chemicals?” There already are products that they could have on their shelves—and they aren’t there.
MIKE SCHADE: Well, the good news is that retailers are beginning to wake up and take action. Just this past year, both Target and Wal-Mart have actually taken pretty significant steps to begin to address toxic chemicals. Both Wal-Mart and Target announced their chemical policies this past fall. And just a couple of weeks ago, Wal-Mart actually announced a pretty significant update.
DEBRA: And I want to hear all about that after the break.
MIKE SCHADE: Great!
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Mike Schade. He’s the campaign director of Mind the Store campaign at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. That’s SaferChemicals.org. We’ll be right back!
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Mike Schade. He’s the campaign director at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families for their Mind the Store campaign.
Mike, what are the 10 retailers that you’ve approached?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah! We’re encouraging the top 10 retailers with the biggest market share to take action. There’s Wal-Mart, Kroger, Target, Walgreens, Costco, The Home Depot, CVS, Lowe’s, Best Buy and Safeway. These are retailers that sell all sorts of products that often contain chemicals of high concern, whether it’s in food packaging or whether it’s in children’s toys or even in building materials that we bring into our homes and schools.
DEBRA: Well, I’ve been to a lot of these stores—not Kroger’s because they’re local to a certain area of the country. They don’t have them here or in California where I used to live. But let’s see the other ones on the list. We have CVS here in Florida, Lowe’s, Best Buy. Safeway, they have in California where I used to live, but not here in Florida.
But I would say that out of this list of places—I mean, some of these, I shop and I find things that aren’t toxic. There are some of these that I think have more awareness than others.
And I would actually say that Target is one where I can find a lot of things that don’t have toxic chemicals. There are still a lot of things with toxic chemicals, but Target is a place.
Costco, particularly—a lot of the organic food that I eat, I buy at Costco because they have things like organic chicken that costs half as much the same brand. It costs half as much at Costco as it does in my natural food store. They have a lot of organic food, things like rice and staple foods—not fresh produce, but staple foods—that are organic.
And Home Depot has a lot of non-toxic building products. But Lowe’s has even more. If I want to find something like a less toxic wood finish, I go to Lowe’s.
So, some of these, I think, are already on the right track. But I think all of them need to improve.
So, before the break, you said that Wal-Mart just changed their policy. What are they doing now?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah! So, different retailers are at different stages. And surprisingly, Wal-Mart is actually arguably—in addition to Target, Wal-Mart and Target are really leading the charge in developing comprehensive chemical policies.
Wal-Mart is doing a number of interesting things. One, on disclosure, they’re actually requiring their suppliers to fully disclose chemical ingredients in products—not all of the products, but certain products (cosmetics, cleaning products, baby products, pet toys and some other product areas). They’re going to require the companies disclose chemical ingredients online as of January 2015.
DEBRA: Wow! Oh, my God!
MIKE SCHADE: January 2015, yup. And then, beginning January 2018, if the company still sells products that contain what Wal-Mart describes as “priority chemicals of concern,” companies will be required to put those ingredients on the product label.
And this is huge because, as you know, Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world. Companies are probably not going to want to have to publicly disclose whether they sell, say, for example, a baby bottle or shampoo for your child if it contains a chemical that’s known to cause cancer or other health problems.
So, this really provides a huge incentive for manufacturers, supplies that sell to Wal-Mart to eliminate chemicals of concern.
So, they’re doing a lot of really great things on disclosure.
They initially developed a list of 10 high priority chemicals of concern. And they recently expanded that. They’ve developed a much broader list of chemicals of concern which literally includes thousands of substances, chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects. And it includes every single one of the chemicals on our Hazardous 100 List and much, much more—which is pretty interesting.
So, if you sell to Wal-Mart, you’ll not only be encouraged to disclose whether your products contain these chemicals, but Wal-Mart is calling on their suppliers to reduce, eliminate and restrict these chemicals, and then also to not just move from one bad chemical to another, but to try to ensure that substitutes are actually safe.
So, they’re encouraging their suppliers to get off what we call the “toxic treadmill” and to really assess the safety of alternative ingredients which is pretty significant.
And in their expanded guide which they just published a couple of weeks ago, they are calling on their suppliers to embrace concepts of informed substitution and alternative assessment which basically means that if you’re going to replace one hazardous chemical, you want to make sure that you’re not replacing it with another that also has a similar hazard profile.
So, this is all really exciting stuff, especially given the sheer magnitude and market impact that a big retailer like Wal-Mart has. And the good news is they’re also going to be publicly reporting on their progress in doing so. And they’re going to be tracking how their suppliers and vendors actually meet this new policy.
They’re going to look at how many suppliers sell products that contain these chemicals. They’re going to look at reduction of chemicals over time. They’re going to look at sales volume, weight volume.
So it’s really quite significant. This really has the potential to seriously send shockwaves through global supply chains and to really provide a major incentives for big brands to eliminate dangerous chemicals that are commonly found in products and store shelves.
DEBRA: All I can say is, “Wow! Wow…”
MIKE SCHADE: That was my first reaction as well. It’s amazing! Typically, a retailer, you don’t expect to be leading a charge on an issue like this, but they’re actually doing some pretty significant things.
And of course, there’s room for improvement, and there are things that they’re not doing that we’d like them to do. But we think this is a really major step in the right direction. We’re hopeful that Wal-Mart will continue to improve this policy over time and we’re also hopeful that other retailers will now join them in taking action. Wal-Mart can’t do it alone. We need other retailers to join the bandwagon and get tough on toxics.
DEBRA: Well, I agree! They all need to band together. And it would actually be great if all your 10 retailers would get together and say, “We’re all going to have the same policy. We’re all going to get a policy that’s as good as possible” and that they’ll all apply it, so that no matter where a manufacturer goes, all the retailers would say, “No, you have to meet this policy.”
MIKE SCHADE: Absolutely! And it’s not just Wal-Mart. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Target has also announced a pretty significant chemicals policy. They announced that this fall, when their policy is—it’s similar to Wal-Mart in many ways.
They’re requiring suppliers to disclose chemicals of concern through an online database.
They’ve also identified a list of over a thousand substances of concern. I don’t think their list is as big as Wal-Mart’s, but it is very significant. And they are going to be tracking how suppliers follow this policy because they’re requiring disclosure online through a system called The Good Guide.
DEBRA: Wow! We’ll be right back after the break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Mike Schade. He’s the campaign director of Mind the Store campaign at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families which is at SaferChemicals.org. We’ll be right back.
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Mike Schade. He’s the campaign director of the Mind the Store campaign at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. And that’s SaferChemicals.org.
And just right on that home page, you can look for the Mind the Store campaign image, that little button. You can just click right there and find out more about all the things that we’re talking about.
Mike, is there any plans by Wal-Mart or Target in their plan to somehow identify products that have been reviewed for toxicity so that consumers can identify those products on the shelves like shelf talkers or stickers on the product or something like that? How will consumers know which ones passed?
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, that’s a really good question. Well, both Wal-Mart and Target are pushing their suppliers on disclosure and transparency which we think is a huge issue. When you are shopping, oftentimes, products are not labeled whether they contain chemicals of concern.
So, Target’s program is really an incentive program. They’re going to be ranking their suppliers on a number of different issues. And transparency is a big one for Target. So if a supplier discloses chemicals of concern online or on the product label, Target will give more preferential treatment to suppliers that are being transparent about chemicals of concern in their products.
To a certain extent, Wal-Mart is going a little bit further in that they’re providing a clear timeframe for transparency. So, as I’ve mentioned before, by January 2015, Wal-Mart is requiring suppliers to disclose chemicals of high concern on company websites. So if you go and wanted to find out if a certain product made by Proctor & Gamble or SC Johnson or whoever contains X or Y chemical, you can go to that company website and find that out.
And then, by January 2018—which it seems far away, but as we know, time flies, and it’s really not that long from now—
DEBRA: Well, it’s better January 2018 than never.
MIKE SCHADE: Totally! Absolutely, yeah. I mean this issue is not going away any time soon unfortunately. So, by 2018, if a company still sells a product to Wal-Mart and it contains a chemical of high concern or a chemical of concern (which again includes thousands of substances), then that company will be required to label the product on store shelves. And I think this is pretty significant.
DEBRA: So, wait, wait, wait. The company will be required to label the product that it contains hazardous chemicals. It’s not entirely clear in terms of what that label will look like.
But the thing that I think is perfectly notable about this is if you’re a manufacturer, you probably don’t want to have to create a different label for just Wal-Mart. It’s probably likely that if you’re going to change the packaging of your product, you would change it for all of your suppliers.
So, we are hopeful this will have a huge, major, spiraling effect across brands throughout global supply chains—not just in the US, but internationally as well. It’s not enough, but it sure as heck is a step in the right direction.
And I think what’s particularly significant about this Wal-Mart announcement is they’re also focusing on fragrance which, as I’m sure you well know, is a huge issue for cleaning products and for cosmetics products because that’s often where nasty substances are found. Chemical like phthalates are often found in fragrances. And most fragrances are usually never labeled.
And so the fact that they’re pushing the envelope on disclosure especially for fragrances I think, hopefully, that’ll have big ripple effects through global supply chains.
But the question is: “Will their suppliers listen?” I think that’s a question that we’re going to be paying very close attention to in the years to come because we want to make sure that their suppliers and vendors are actually complying with their policy as well as Target’s new policy. And at the same time, we’re going to be working really hard to get other retailers like Walgreens, for example, to join them in taking action on dangerous chemicals and their supply chains.
DEBRA: So, I think what you’re saying is that by 2018, Wal-Mart will still be selling toxic products, but they have to be clearly labeled that there are chemicals in them and what those toxic chemicals are which is a big improvement on what we have now?
But this is where consumers can then say, “Well, now we can clearly identify there’s a toxic chemical in there and not buy it.”
And what will happen is if consumers who shop at Wal-Mart don’t buy those products, you can be sure that Wal-Mart will take them off the shelf if they are not purchased.
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah. And again, they’re not only requiring disclosure, but they’re also encouraging their suppliers to reduce, restrict and eliminate chemicals of concern. So there’s a really strong incentive for manufacturers and vendors to not only disclose chemical ingredients, but more importantly, to eliminate them because if you’re a manufacturer, like I’ve said before, you probably don’t want to have to put a label on your baby bath or whatever it is saying that this contains a chemical into asthma and birth defects. That’s the last thing that any brand would want to do because they would provide an incentive for a parent, a mom to not buy that product for their child, for their baby.
DEBRA: But we already have a labeling system. Especially on cleaning products, we have to put warning labels and pesticides and paints and things like that where they are very toxic products. And yet people are just buying them anyway.
And they don’t even look at those danger signals.
So, you would think that it would be a deterrent if those kinds of warnings were required on the label. We already have them and people aren’t deterred. They still make them. They still sell them at retail stores. And consumers still buy them.
So, I think there needs to be a lot of education as well. I think that still despite 30 years of my writing books and speaking out on this subject and all of your work, there are still consumers who don’t know there’s a problem.
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s really important for consumers to take action on this issue. We encourage if you’re a consumer and you’re out shopping, you should speak to the store manager if you’re at a retailer or if you’re at Best Buy or Walgreens or any other major retailer to take action. Speak with the store manager, and let them know that this is an issue that you’re concerned about.
You’re concerned about the fact that their store likely still sell many products that contain chemicals that are harmful for children, that are harmful for pregnant women, that are harmful for women of vulnerable age.
You could actually even go to our website at MindtheStore.org or SaferChemicals.org and actually send a quick email to retailers and tell them that you’d like them to take action to get dangerous chemicals out of their products.
Another thing you can do is to plan a retailer rendezvous. Get together with a bunch of your friends. We actually have a toolkit on our website you can download. Go to the retailer together with some of your friends and family and put together a little event.
DEBRA: Wait, wait! Tell us more about the retailer rendezvous, about how that goes. Maybe some people listening will want to do that.
MIKE SCHADE: Yeah, yeah. The retailer rendezvous is a really fun way for folks to take action. The idea is that we want to get retailers to come up with policies to take action on toxic chemicals.
So, the first way to plan a retailer rendezvous is to send an email to your friends and ask them if they’d be interested in joining you to visit your local big box retailer—Walgreens or Best Buy or whoever it is. Figure out a date and time that would be convenient for all of you guys to get together. You can go to our website and print off sample copies of letters that we’ve sent to retailers. Figure out when and where you guys would want to meet, and then set up a time to meet with the store manager and have a conversation with them about why as a consumer or why as a parent you’re concerned about this issue.
We think that store managers really have a unique place of power. And what we’re doing is we’re trying to get store managers to relay a message to their regional managers and corporate headquarters that this is an issue that customers are asking them about.
We actually have a whole toolkit on our website. If you go to MindtheStore.org and you click on the “take action” button, you can download a simple guide, Retailer Rendezvous Toolkit which has information on how to plan one of these events.
I’ve done one myself. We’ve had some of our blogger friends, some of our green blogger friends do them over time. We have talking points in the Retailer Rendezvous Toolkit. We have frequently asked questions. We make it really simple and easy to do this.
And like I said, it could be really, really effective because, oftentimes, retailers will listen to the sorts of questions or comments that they hear from their customers. This could be a really effective way to convey a message that we want retailers to take action and get tough on toxics.
Especially if you could go to one of the retailers that has not taken action yet like a Best Buy or a Walgreens. That could be particularly effective. Since Wal-Mart and Target are beginning to take action, we like to see other retailers like Best Buy and Walgreens to join them and to mind their store and to develop a plan to eliminate harmful chemicals in their products.
So, Walgreens, for example, they’re the largest drugstore chain in the country. And they are, unfortunately, falling behind.
They are lagging behind Target and other retailers. So, this year, we’re hopeful that Walgreens will join Target, Wal-Mart and others to get tough on toxics.
DEBRA: Mike, I’m sorry to interrupt you. There’s so much we could talk about, but we’re coming to the end of the show, and pretty soon, the music is going to come on and cut you off.
So, thank you so much for being with me today. So much great information! And again, the website is SaferChemicals.org.
You’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.
