One of America’s largest dollar store chains, Dollar Tree, has signed onto a program that would help the company phase out heavy metals such as lead and harmful chemicals including the plastic additives bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates. For a discount store that serves millions of Americans with cheap products that can have caused expensive health problems, this is a big step.
The Chemical Footprint Project, as it’s known, measures a company’s chemical footprint and then tracks their progress toward using safer alternatives throughout their supply chain. Any company involved with the CFP formally submits data to the program, beginning with a survey that establishes a baseline score. Usually, financial risk and fierce competition between chains drives companies to sign onto the CFP. But with dollar stores, which serve largely low-income communities of color, there was pressure to do right by vulnerable groups.
In 2014 members from the Campaign for Healthier Solutions collected more than 160 dollar store products, such as pencil cases and silly straws, that were then tested for chemicals. They found that 81 percent of products tested hazardous for at least one chemical of concern, such as lead or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. Among the most pervasive, however, were phthalates—a group of chemicals that make plastic soft and malleable.
Fortunately, groups such as the Chemical Footprint Project and Campaign for Healthier Solutions have been able to persuade bigger retailers such as Walmart and Target, as well as discount stores like Dollar General and now the Dollar Tree, to avoid selling products that use harmful chemicals.
