Walmart adds pressure on toxics overhaul

Retail giant Walmart said today it would reduce or eliminate 10 chemicals in products it sells, adding pressure to the chemical industry to support Sen. Barbara Boxer’s planned rewrite of a bill to begin regulating industrial chemicals.

Stacy Malkan, who worked on the failed campaign for California’s Prop. 37 to label genetically engineered food, called Walmart’s move “a huge victory for the millions of people who are demanding safer products, and a significant step forward. But there’s still a long way to go to clean up the beauty aisle,” saying there are lots of hazardous chemicals “in the products we put on our bodies.” Malkan is co-founder of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.”

An advocacy group called Clean Production Action said the Walmart policy was “the first chemical policy of this scope by a major international retailer.”

The list of 10 chemicals to be phased out has not yet been made public.

Walmart’s head of corporate affairs, former Bush aide Dan Bartlett, announced the new policy via webcast, where he acknowledged skepticism about Walmart’s sustainability initiative. Bartlett called sustainability “good business,” saying customers want safer, more environmentally friendly products.

Walmart’s action follows a move by Procter and Gamble last week to phase out phthalates, formaldehyde, parabens and triclosan in its products. The Breast Cancer Fund also this week issued a survey of scientific literature, Disrupted Development, claiming a link between BPA (bisphenol A), used in canned food linings, plastic bottles and hundreds of other products, to breast cancer and other endocrine problems such as early puberty and decreased fertility. The report said canned food is a major route for BPA exposure via fetal exposure in pregnant mothers.

Walmart is the world’s largest retailer. The move is part of its efforts to rehabilitate its image as a corporate villain. The company is currently battling the District of Columbia over a “living wage.” Its buying power is immense and strongly influences manufacturers.

Environmental Defense Fund worked with WalMart to create the new policy as part of an effort to reduce chemical exposures in the vacuum left by lack of federal policy, according to Sarah Vogel, director of EDF’s environmental health program. A spokesperson said in an email, “Walmart’s leverage as a retailer will force other retailer and suppliers to follow suit and address the issue of dangerous chemicals in consumer products. It will also have an immediate positive impact on the 80 percent of Americans who shop at Walmart today.”

Vogel called the new policy aggressive, saying, “No other company is requiring the all-important, but often forgotten, second step to truly transformational phase-outs: putting a system in place that avoids regrettable chemical substitutions.”

The policy calls for 10 chemical ingredients as an initial list for “continuous reduction, restriction and elimination,” the company said. The policy covers household cleaners, personal care, beauty and cosmetics categories, and will require disclosure of the ingredients by January 2018. The announcement was part of a broader sustainability announcement also covering food and farming, recycling and other issues at its Global Sustainability Milestone Meeting. Speakers at the meeting claimed its beef guidelines will improve land stewardship and water quality on half of U.S. grazing land.

Carolyn Lochhead