The Wal-Mart Watch Blog
environmental

| Jan 29, 2010

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The Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled two ‘Princess and the Frog’ charm necklaces today due to high levels of Cadmium, a dangerous heavy metal. The necklaces are sold exclusively at Walmart stores. It may sound like many other recall stories, but this is actually the first time the CPSC has recalled anything for containing Cadmium. The metal was spotlighted in a recent Associated Press investigation which discovered high levels of Cadmium in many pieces of children’s jewelry.

Cadmium, like lead and other heavy metals, is a known carcinogen and can cause stunted brain development in children.

The Associated Press found that Chinese factories had started using Cadmium in products after they stopped using lead due to scrutiny from the US government during the last product safety scare.

In our opinion, it is no coincidence that this first Cadmium recall happened at Walmart, either. First because the use of cadmium seems to be linked with Chinese factories, at least so far. More than 70% of Walmart’s goods come from China, making it likely that these toxic metal products could end up on Walmart’s shelves. Second, Walmart has a history of using its size and clout to push suppliers to produce at a lower cost, forcing them to cut corners to meet Walmart’s price demands and still make a profit. One of the areas that suppliers could cut corners is product safety.

We think it’s pretty irresponsible for Walmart to be selling cadmium laced children’s necklaces, or anything else with highly toxic chemicals, for that matter. That’s why we launched a campaign over the holiday shopping season demanding that Walmart remove dangerous products from its shelves. Obviously they haven’t listened.

You can read more about Walmart’s dangerous products and sign an open letter to Mike Duke demanding that he take responsibility for consumer protection here.

The official CPSC press release about the Disney ‘Princess and the Frog’ necklaces is here.

| Jan 05, 2010

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Walmart’s business model is based on leveraging its size to reduce its costs. They squeeze manufacturers hard, often forcing these manufacturer to cut costs to earn any profit at all. Up until now, the only thing standing between these companies and Walmart was, in some cases, a 3rd company who bought the products and got them to Walmart’s distribution centers. Now, Walmart is looking to eliminate that barrier. They have announced plans to begin buying more products directly from the manufacturer. Walmart has also established four global merchandising centers.

For a company that has spent a significant amount of time and energy recently touting their efforts to buy more local products, this sure doesn’t sound like going local. In fact, this highlights a major environmental problem with Walmart: they produce vast quantities of products that are then shipping half way around the world.

Check out the full article over at the Financial Times.

| Dec 07, 2009

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Two years ago, Walmart promoted Aqua Dots as a top toy for the holiday season. It was soon discovered that children who ate the pieces of this toy (which looked quite a lot like candy) passed out because of a chemical that was used to make the toy.  Last year, despite safety concerns, Walmart still sold toys and products tainted with lead and other toxins. It looks like Walmart will continue their tradition of selling dangerous toys during the holidays.

| Dec 03, 2009

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Back in July, Walmart announced a grandiose plan to create a sustainability index. The PR gains from this announcement were impressive, with glowing articles and few critics. It does sound nifty, a convenient little number on the side of every product, telling you just how good or bad for the environment it is. Just imagine it! You could look at that $3 plastic toy, encased in more plastic and shipped from China, and see just how bad for the environment it is!

Well, that was the idea anyway. It is now becoming less and less clear how this index will get started. You see when Walmart announced it was starting this index, they made it clear they weren’t really starting it, but funding a coalition of professors and nonprofits to start it. Only some of the leaders of the coalition that Walmart funded are now saying that isn’t really what they are doing. The Sustainability Consortium was instead, “established to pull in the best practices and information from the myriad of LCA (Life Cycle Assesment) data and certification guidelines surrounding products’ environmental impacts in order to produce standardized, transparent tools and methodologies that can be used to make good business decisions.” The Sustainability Consortium made it clear that they would not be developing a certification program, but rather would create a data tool looking at the environmental impact of products.

It seems, then, that Walmart is expecting the Sustainability Consortium to develop this magical product index (and take credit for it), and the Sustainability Consortium is just putting out data and expecting retailers, or others, to develop a product index. So will there actually be a sustainability index? Who knows? It doesn’t seem terribly likely right now. We hope Walmart will step up and use the data from the Sustainability Consortium to improve their environmental impact, but that doesn’t seem terribly likely either.

You can read the full article about the Sustainability Consortium here.

| Oct 22, 2009

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Apparently Walmart is VERY in to going green...unless it inconveniences them or their customers a little...or cuts in to sales. At least that seems to be the message in Walmart’s latest announcement that they won’t cut plastic bags from two stores until after the holidays, or later. Just a few days after the company announced they would test removing plastic bags in three stores, two of those stores back peddled.

The excuse Walmart gave is that, “The goal of this test is to gauge customer reaction. We think we’ll get a more accurate reaction by offering these bags after the holidays.” But we can’t imagine why the reaction would be any different. The real reason, it would seem, is that Walmart does a huge portion of their business during the holiday season and they don’t want to do anything to cut in to their sales.

Of course there is nothing wrong with wanting to maximize your sales during the busiest shopping time of the year, the issue is with Walmart portraying itself as a super green, environmentally friendly force of good. Walmart’s main concern is profit, and this belies their true motives.

Here’s the article from The Sacramento Bee:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Wednesday said it will not be removing free plastic bags from two of its locations in the region until at least January.

Signs in Walmart stores in Folsom and Citrus Heights had announced that shoppers would soon have to either bring their own bags or buy reusable ones – for 15 cents.

The two stores, along with a third in Ukiah, make up a small test program. Going plastic bag-free is one of a variety of strategies being tried at stores around the world as Walmart evaluates ways to meet its goal of cutting plastic bag waste 33 percent by 2013.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amelia Neufeld said the company decided that launching the reusable bag-only program just before the holiday shopping season would skew the test results.
“The goal of this test is to gauge customer reaction. We think we’ll get a more accurate reaction by offering these bags after the holidays,” she said.

Neufeld would not comment on whether recent customer reactions had driven the decision to postpone the test.

At the Folsom store earlier this week, customers interviewed by The Bee were roughly split on the plan.

Matthew Oliver, a Folsom resident who complained in writing at his local store after learning of the plan, said a Wal-Mart representative called him Wednesday to say the Sunday launch of the test program had been called off.

Oliver said he resented the reusable bag program because he felt it was a cost-cutting measure with a green veneer that deprived him of the right to choose how he’d like to carry his purchases.

“I just want to buy my milk from you,” he said. “I don’t want you to tell me what my political views ought to be.”

Wal-Mart is also evaluating other strategies for reducing plastic waste that don’t involve removing free plastic bags from stores altogether. It is retraining some checkers to put more items in each sack, for instance, and is considering switching to thinner bags that contain less plastic.

The company’s 15-cent reusable bags will continue to be offered at the checkout counters in Folsom and Citrus Heights, Neufeld said. They are royal blue and made of a lightweight, recyclable polypropylene fabric.

| Oct 09, 2009

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Simple: wipe the animal off the endangered species list.  At least, that’s what Walmart developers want to do in New Jersey. 

Jay and Linda Grunin have been fighting to build a Walmart in Manchester, NJ for years.  Their site, however, has been identified as a home to the Northern Pine Snake: an threatened species in New Jersey.  In turn, the state Department of Environmental Protection put the kibosh on their plans for the new Walmart, lest it destroy some of the isolated species’ habitat.

Hoping to “compromise”, the builders proposed concessions that would only partially ruin the animal’s local habitat.  They were still denied.  Now the developers have gone for the nuclear option. 

In part for the benefit of the Walmart project, the New Jersey Builders Association wants to strike the threatened Pine Snake from the state’s list of endangered species completely. 

Such a move could be a devastating blow to the animal.  Development in other areas of the country have pushed Pine Snake populations out.  One expert notes that “Before too long, the Pinelands [of New Jersey] is likely to be… its stronghold.”

Conservationists are not happy:

Environmental activists already think the Pinelands Commission compromises on pine snakes, and they are alarmed by the builders’ push, said Carleton Montgomery of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.

“The approach the Pinelands has taken is to protect the habitat of protected species wherever you find it,” Montgomery said. “If you say, “There’s enough of their habitat over there, so let’s trash it here,’ you’re on the road to failure.”

Walmart doesn’t appear to be bowing out of this one gracefully. So much for their new PR angle: apparently “Sustainability 360” doesn’t have qualms about contributing to the eradication of an endangered species.

According to NJ.com, State biologists say they can make a strong case to keep the pine snake a protected creature.  We have our fingers crossed for them. 

| Jun 25, 2009

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We hate to say “I told you so,” but....

Marc Gunther on ClimateBiz discussed Wal-Mart on his blog yesterday, and points out something we’ve been trying to get across as well. Even as its greenhouse gas emissions have begun to fall, the company’s overall carbon footprint has continued to rise.

As Gwen Ruta of the Environmental Defense Fund, a Wal-Mart partner, writes in her frank assessment of the company’s 2009 sustainability report, the problem is that all the good things that Wal-Mart is doing—increasing its use of renewable energy, driving efficiency in individual stores, improving its fleet operations and pushing up its recycling rate—are offset by the fact that the company is adding more stores and selling more stuff.

In late 2007 we released our own environmental report, in which we brought up the following:

Wal-Mart’s new stores will use more energy than its energy-saving measures will save. Its fleet of trucks, massive overseas shipping to import its goods, and the increasing vehicle miles traveled by its consumers all contribute heavily to CO2 emissions and the number of ozone-causing particulates released into the air. Its huge stores and even larger parking lots contribute to the degradation of our water supply, affecting our drinking water and the viability of aquatic life.

Wal-Mart’s response has been that by increasing its market share, it can replace less efficient competitors and thereby reduce emissions in the retail sector as a whole, even as it continues to expand. That might ultimately be true in the far, far distant future, especially if one day every store is a Wal-Mart. But in the interim, Wal-Mart’s total carbon emissions continue to outpace its efficiency gains. And as Gunther so eloquently adds:

If the Earth’s atmosphere could speak, it would tell us that it doesn’t care about efficiency or renewables or recyling—or market share.

Wal-Mart’s Big Problem: Climate Change [ClimateBiz]

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| Jun 19, 2009

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A gymnasium where the shipping and receiving area used to be. A media center where flat screen TVs and Wii consoles once sold. Rows of classrooms replacing rows of Cheetos, Doritos and Fritos.

Yes, a former Wal-Mart in Ottawa, Illinois, has received a new lease on life. Central Elementary School, forced to move from its building after city officials condemned it due to flood damage last fall, has found a new home in a 90,000 square foot big box.

Ottawa Elementary Schools superintendent Craig Doster said he expected to have the keys and clearance to enter the 90,000-square-foot building today, assuming the Wal-Mart corporate office has finished its last-minute paperwork on the lease...Classroom walls will be installed at 10-foot heights, and if all goes according to plan, the interior will look very much like a school.

This of course isn’t a cure-all for the thousands of empty big box shells dotting the U.S., but its still nice to hear of a productive use being found for what otherwise would be nothing but an empty eyesore. The New Rules Project says that just a couple of years ago, Wal-Mart had 246 vacant or soon-to-be vacant properties. Retailers often hold onto ownership to keep rivals from moving onto the property - especially relevant for Wal-Mart, since many of the company’s empty building are so because they’ve been replaced by larger supercenters within the same geographic area.

Luckily, Wal-Mart appears not to regard a pack of 10-year-olds to be much in the way of competition.

Ottawa starts converting old Wal-Mart into school [News Tribune]

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| Jun 11, 2009

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The way they fight them tooth and nail, you’d think Wal-Mart believes its eventual downfall could come at the hands of unions. But could there be another force at work, something evil that lives deep within the bowels of our planet, a nightmare that keeps Wal-Mart up at night clutching its pillows and sweating in its cheap Sam’s Club bed?

Expensive oil?

Admit it...you thought I was going the science fiction route. A vicious Balrog from Lord of the Rings that lives beneath the Earth’s crust and breathes fire. I guess you could make the leap to oil - it too has a black heart and is flammable, after all. And in his new book $20 Per Gallon, Christopher Steiner imagines an everyday world in which the price of gasoline (and oil) continues to rise (and rise...and rise some more), and the immediate impact that would have on our lives. The Oregonian has a sample:

$6/gallon: We will finally kill the SUV, allowing Los Angeles to emerge from smog and saving 15,600 lives a year from deadly auto crashes, since people will be driving far less. At the same time, revenues from gas taxes will plunge, causing roads and bridges to crumble, leading to higher tolls.
$14: “Wal-Mart killed by high cost of global transport. Mom-and-pop retailers return to Main Street. U.S. Factories revive.” The bad? “With driving cut in half and asphalt costs soaring, even toll roads shut down.”
$20: Mass biking and transit, including the nationwide high-speed rail network that will supposedly happen at $18 a gallon. Plus, 90 percent of Americans will live in cities. “The bad,” according to Steiner’s prediction is nuclear power will power everything, including cargo ships and polyester will be “too expensive for clothes.”

Steiner notes that as oil and gas prices rise, business models like Wal-Mart’s (heavy on cheap overseas imports, reliant on a driving/mobile consumer) will become progressively more unsustainable. Could we see companies like Wal-Mart lobbying against raising the Federal gas tax or a tax on miles driven? Could future rises in costs be behind Wal-Mart’s attempts to move into more urban areas? Check out an interview with Steiner on Michigan NPR after the jump, and then share your thoughts.

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3 comments | May 01, 2009

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We’re going to take an ever-so-short break from Wal-Mart and the labor fight to return to the “roots” of the grassroots organizing against the retailer - namely objections to the company’s expansion. To the right is the view from inside a mammoth Wal-Mart Distribution Center. It is big...REAL big. In fact, just a couple months ago, Al Norman laid out exactly HOW big a new Distribution Center in Merced, CA, would be:

This enormous project will consume 270 acres on the southeast side of Merced, a community of roughly 70,000 people. The Distribution Center will pave over 100 acres of prime farmland, to create a 1,200,000 s.f. building—the equivalent of six supercenters under one roof, or 24 football fields. The pavement and parking lot for the facility is 4,353,000 s.f. There is room at the site for 300 parking spaces for tractor-trailers.

Did we mention it’s big? Well what this picture doesn’t illustrate are the environmental concerns of a distribution center beyond simple size - the 24 hours of light affecting local wildlife (and people), the millions of tons of particulates spewed into the air by hundreds of trucks and thousands of cars traveling to and from daily.

As the DC has moved forward, most notably with the release of the City’s draft Environmental Impact Report, opposition has risen as well - see the Merced Stop Wal-Mart Action Team. This week, letters have continued to flow in to local papers opposing the development. These are just a handful of our favorite examples:

Letter: China says ‘thank you’ [Merced Sun-Star]

China says “Thank you, Merced.”

Thank you for building the Wal-Mart distribution center in your town.

Yes, the creation of a few hundred jobs in Merced employed thousands of us to manufacture the cheap stuff you buy at Wal-Mart.

And as your fair city basks in the 24 hours of daylight from the towers of stadium lighting and the comforting hum (visible and audible for miles) of idling trucks, grinding gears, the occasional tooth rattling slam of a load hitting the 100 acres of asphalt, and as your school- children breathe the poison belched from 900 trucks a day, China says thanks and keep supporting the People’s Republic of China by shopping at Wal-Mart.

MICHAEL J. LEONARD
Merced

Check out more after the jump.

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