Last Tuesday, November 14th, Clean Water Action joined Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families in releasing the second annual Retailer Report Card. This report grades popular retail chains on how they address the problem of toxic chemicals, that can pose serious health threats, in the products they sell. In Massachusetts, we focused our attention on the TJX Company, since they are headquartered here in Framingham. The creator of T.J.Maxx, Marshalls, Homegoods, and others, TJX is the leading off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions, with over 3,800 stores worldwide. They scored an F on this year’s report card.
Clean Water Action activists visited Marshall’s and T.J.Maxx stores in their areas. In each store we presented a fact sheet about the report card and a letter to store managers asking them to relay these customer concerns to TJX headquarters.
Lynn Nadeau from Marblehead expressed her frustration with toxic chemicals found in everyday products: “Consumers all over the country are crying out for safe products. It is up to big corporations like TJX to keep carcinogens, estrogen imitators, and other harmful ingredients from the dyes, plastics and flame retardants in the products they sell. Protect us!”
Activists Lori Alper from Bedford, Lynn Nadeau from Marblehead, and Erica Streit-Kaplan from Newton, holding their local TJX retailers accountable for failing to protect consumers from toxic chemicals.
In Boston, we had really positive responses from the managers of both T.J.Maxx and Marshall’s and the volunteers reported back positive experiences as well. Hopefully, the stores we all visited will take these requests to heart by improving their policies and practices and taking toxic chemicals off their shelves.
A HUGE shout out to our amazing and supportive activists for going out in the cold and helping spread the word about toxic chemicals!
You can help too! Write to all the companies that got F’s and tell them to improve their policies and protect their customers!
