The holiday shopping season is upon us, and whether you’re looking for the perfect gift or ingredients for a delicious holiday meal, one health group is warning that you might want to be careful where you shop. The nonprofit Toxic-Free Future, which specializes in environmental health research and advocacy, released it latest Retailer Report Card on the use of toxic chemicals and some of the most popular names are featured in its “Hall of Shame.”
For the report, Toxic-Free Future looked at the top 50 retailers in the United States and Canada and graded them on a scale of A to F, like a school report card.
The group looked at four different factors to determine a retailer’s grade:
- Corporate commitment, which is whether a company has adopted safer policies to avoid using chemicals and plastics of high concern.
- Transparency on whether companies are asking suppliers what ingredients they use in products and packaging.
- Whether retailers are working to “ban the bad,” like dangerous chemicals and harmful plastics.
- Whether the company is working to find safer solutions to these harmful chemicals and plastics.
Of the top 50 largest retailers, 17 scored a failing grade and only four got an A.
The retailers that ranked lowest on the list were ones that owned restaurants and dollar store chains like Five Below, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. The retailers that received A grades were Apple, Sephora, Target and Walmart.
Target and Walmart, which also owns popular bulk chain Sam’s Club, were the only grocery retailers to get such a high grade.
Publix and Trader Joe’s received an F, Aldi got a D+, Costco and Kroger both received a C-, and Whole Foods scored a B.
Amazon and Best Buy received Cs and Starbucks got a D.
Find the complete report and a breakdown of how each retailer’s score was calculated here.
