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The Campaign for Healthier Solutions
The Campaign for Healthier Solutions

 


The Campaign for Healthier Solutions is urging the nation’s largest dollar stores to implement corporate policies to phase out harmful chemicals in the products they sell, mandate the use of safer chemicals, and stock healthy, locally-grown foods in stores. CHS is a community-led, collaborative project of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform and Coming Clean that includes farmworker advocates, environmental justice communities and environmental health organizations. 

Dollar stores have been found to target communities of color and low-income communities as profitable locations to operate, and are the only place available in some communities to purchase essential household goods and food. Since 2015, our product testing has shown that dollar store products from children’s toys to cookware contain chemicals that have been linked to learning disabilities, cancer, and reproductive harm. Together, we are demanding that dollar stores proactively protect the health and well-being of communities by eliminating chemicals of concern from their supply chain.

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"All families deserve safe and healthy products, and all communities deserve business partners that will prioritize the health of their customers. Unfortunately, millions of American families live in intentionally food-deprived areas without access to fresh fruits and vegetables—forcing them to rely on dollar stores for much of their food and household items. We tested dollar store products and found that many contain toxic chemicals at alarming levels. Sadly, the nation's largest dollar store chains have done very little to protect our families and their workers.

People of color and low-income communities are often already over-exposed to toxic chemicals and unhealthy foods, and that’s why the Campaign for Healthier Solutions is working to get toxic chemicals out of dollar stores. Our campaign is focused on environmental and economic justice, led by grassroots community activists, and we’re fighting to make sure dollar stores help solve our problems—instead of adding to them.

We’ve already won partial commitments from some of the nation’s largest dollar stores, but there’s still lots of work to do to get them caught up to other major retailers. Please support our work for a more just and nontoxic future. 

 

—José Bravo, Campaign Coordinator

Latest Resources and Reports

 

Testing for Toxic Chemicals in Dollar Store Products

A 2022 product screening report released by the Campaign for Healthier Solutions and Ecology Center found that over 50% of items purchased at major dollar stores in 2021 contained chemicals of concern. Notably, many of these items included toys and other products marketed to children that were found to contain lead, PVC and phthalates. 

Read more about our product testing in the Guardian, NPR, and Grist. 

 

 

 

 

 

Retailer Report Card

 

The Retailer Report Card is a report by the Mind the Store Campaign that addresses major U.S. retailers and their actions to eliminate toxic chemicals. The 2024 Retailer Report Card establishes, for the first time, an enhanced grading system called The Four Essential Elements for a Safer Marketplace. The four elements include: Corporate Commitment, Transparency, Ban the Bad, and Safer Solutions.

    • Dollar Tree earned a D. The company has a chemical policy, and expanded it to include more restricted substances in recent years. Dollar Tree participates in the Chemical Footprint Proejct, but does not disclose its chemical footprint publicly. 
    • Dollar General earned D+. Although the company has a chemical policy, it only applies to a limited number of private-label products. Dollar General participates in the Chemical Footprint Project, but does not disclose its chemical footprint publicly.

 

 

 

Lowering the Levels: A Healthy Baby Food Initiative


Download: What's in My Baby's Food? Our joint report with Healthy Babies Bright Futures and other partners on packaged baby food found that 95% of tested products contained at least 1 heavy metal that are linked to lower IQs.

 

 

 

 

 

BPA: Buyers Beware : Toxic BPA and regrettable substitutes found in the linings of canned food.

Download the report. 

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a toxic, endocrine-disrupting chemical that negatively impacts our hormonal systems, contributing to a host of harmful health effects. Hundreds of scientific studies have linked extremely small amounts of BPA, measured in parts per billion and even parts per trillion, to an increased risk of breast and prostate cancer, infertility, type-2 diabetes, obesity, asthma, and behavioral changes including attention deficit disorder. In this report, canned food from national food brands was collected in 19 states for testing. 67 percent of the cans tested (129 out of 192) contained BPA-based epoxy in the body and/or the lid.

 

 

 

 

 

A Day Late and Dollar Short: Discount Retailers are Falling Behind on Safer Chemicals

Download the report. In 2015, we partnered with Ecology Center to test 164 products purchased at the four largest dollar store chains (Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and 99 Cents Only) in six states. 81% of the products tested (133 of 164) contained at least one hazardous chemical above levels of concern, including lead and other hazardous metals, phthalates, and polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC or vinyl).  Low-income communities and communities of color rely on dollar stores for staples, and are already disproportionately exposed to harmful chemicals. We argue that this places a higher level of responsibility on dollar stores to ensure they are not selling toxic products. 

 

 

 

 


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