Retailers selling directly to early care and education programs, including child care programs and Head Start, need to do more to screen out harmful chemicals, a new report to be released Monday finds.
Retailers, Parents
A new report reveals that many of North America’s largest retail companies are embracing chemical safety policies to help protect consumers from toxic chemicals in products. In the largest-ever analysis of its kind, 63% of evaluated companies improved over the past year alone.
The fourth annual Who’s Minding the Store? A Report Card on Retailer Actions to Eliminate Toxic Chemicals evaluated and graded the chemical policies and practices of 43 retail chains with more than 190,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada, as part of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families’ Mind the Store campaign.
The only major retailer focused on baby products, buybuy BABY, and its parent company Bed Bath and Beyond, was one of the most improved, raising their score this year from a D+ to a C+, through new documented policies to restrict harmful chemicals in padded products like furniture and toys and personal care products for babies.
Bobbi Wilding, Director of the Getting Ready for Baby campaign, said, "It's heartening to see marked improvement Bed Bath and Beyond and its subsidiary buybuy BABY have made to reduce harmful chemicals in baby products in this year's Retailer Report Card. Increasing their grade from a D+ to a C+ is a great step - and parents will look forward to seeing this trend toward safer products continue in 2020."
