Safe Products and Stores

Central Coast members of Lideres Campesinas organized a protest outside the Dollar Tree store in Orcutt, CA as part of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions national week of action calling on dollar store chains to protect their customers from toxic chemicals in the products they sell. “These big companies, they have their a store in the poorest community and the poorest area of the community, they establish their store for colored people, fieldworkers, people who are not able to buy expensive products,” says Rosalba Garcia.

On May 29, 2024, representatives of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions attended Dollar General’s annual shareholders meeting in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, urging the company to commit to eliminating chemicals of concern from its supply chain. After the company failed to make any new commitments to strengthen its chemical policy or expand its restricted substance list, representatives from the campaign delivered a letter to company executives urging additional action, and announced that they were actively testing Dollar General products for chemicals linked to health conditions like cancer, learning disabilities, and reproductive harm.

BPA disrupts the proper functioning of hormones — hence the endocrine-disruptor moniker — and has been linked to cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive, nervous and immune system impacts and behavioral problems. It is likely partially responsible for the worldwide dramatic decline in sperm counts over the last 50 years. Surveys in the U.S. by the Can Manufacturers Association in 2020 and 2022 found that most members were no longer using epoxy resin can linings. “Food can linings are now made with enhanced performance acrylic, polyester or other non-BPA epoxy linings,” the association wrote in a letter to the Washington state Department of Ecology. But recent studies and a survey in the U.S. by the Campaign for Healthier Solutions show that progress on eliminating epoxy resin can linings is uneven. Food cans with epoxy linings are more commonly found in ethnic and discount stores serving low-income communities.

Este martes, un grupo de personas protestó al frente de una de las tiendas de 99 centavos para exigir que se eliminen productos que tienen, al parecer, sustancias tóxicas, pues dicen que pone en riesgo la salud de las personas, especialmente los de bajos ingresos, que acuden a estas tiendas. Según los manifestantes, algunos pesticidas y jabones con malos olores les habría provocado dolores de cabeza e incluso aseguran que hasta ciertas medicinas les causaron una reacción alérgica.

Allied members of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions, including farmworkers, environmental justice advocates, parents, and dollar store shoppers demonstrated outside 99 Cents Only Stores Headquarters and local stores across the state, urging the company to phase out chemicals of concern from its products. A delegation representing the campaign also delivered a letter requesting a meeting with 99 Cents Only Stores’ interim Chief Operations Officer Michael Simoncic and Director of Compliance Edgar Flores, to begin the work of drafting a corporate chemical management policy.

Since 2019, the Local Food Solutions project has been asking Dollar General to offer healthy, local food options in its stores, starting with four stores in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The South Valley of Albuquerque is the base of operations for the Agri-Cultura Network, a community-based and farmer-led cooperative that works to provide access to local and sustainably grown produce and spur local economic development. Agri-Cultura Network and its network of more than 70 farms and ranches use traditional and innovative agricultural practices to improve environmental and community stewardship and strengthen the agrarian and cultural heritage of their land and its residents. Local Food Solutions is offering a path forward for Dollar General to provide highly desirable, local food to its customers, and in doing so, reinvest in the communities where its stores operate.

Dollar General shareholders urged the discount retailer to better protect the health of workers and shoppers today at its annual shareholder meeting in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Shareholder advocates with the Campaign for Healthier Solutions (CHS) called on Dollar General to phase out chemicals of concern from its products and receipts, and voted yes on a shareholder proposal requesting an independent worker safety and well-being audit. New testing conducted by the Ecology Center Health Stuff Lab has found hormone-disrupting bisphenol S (BPS) in receipts that were printed in select stores of the major discount retailers in 2022, including Dollar General. 

Bev Thorpe reflects on her participation in a roundtable event Sustainable Chemistry in RD&D to Transform the Chemicals Industry, co-hosted by the Dept of Energy/Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office and the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council. "Sustainable Chemistry – if rolled out well – will provide solutions for both the climate and chemical pollution crises and local communities will be integral to this success.   But this will only happen if decarbonization and detoxification go hand in hand."