Getting toxics out of what we buy

Since 2005, EDF and Walmart have worked to reduce the retailing giant’s environmental footprint.

Together, we’ve begun to make the company’s operations and its products more sustainable.

And we’re tackling the environmental impact of every stage of producing those goods, right down to delivery at the loading dock.

Addressing toxics

One problem we took on was chemicals in Walmart’s products. Current U.S. law on chemicals is so ineffective that the vast majority of the roughly 80,000 chemicals available for use have never been tested for their potential threat to people or the planet. In fact, the law is so weak that EPA could not even ban asbestos, a known human carcinogen. Congress had to do the job instead.

Some chemicals of concern are long-lasting toxic substances that accumulate in the human body or the environment. Others are endocrine disrupters — chemicals that in minute amounts mimic human hormones and disrupt the body’s normal functioning.

EDF has worked hard to ensure that the toxic chemicals law is reformed. In the meantime, however, our partnership with Walmart presented us with an exciting opportunity to change the way the market deals with chemicals in consumer products.

EDF, Walmart create new software tool

In 2009, Walmart announced the creation of GreenWERCS, a software tool that assesses the chemical ingredients of household cleaners, personal care products and other chemical-based items on its shelves.

With GreenWERCS, Walmart can get information about carcinogens, reproductive toxins and other substances of concern used in making the products it sells, as well as a product’s potential to become hazardous waste. An EDF representative co-chaired the working group that spent 18 months developing the tool’s evaluation criteria. (Read more about this process and partnership between EDF and Walmart.)

EDF and other proponents of this tool believe that the market will, over time, demand that chemicals triggering poor GreenWERCS scores in consumer products be replaced by other, more benign, substitutes.

Infographic: Why are chemicals such a problem?

Toxic chemicals in products around you make their way into you and your family.

See how they put your health at risk »