Introducing PCC’s new cleaning products standard

A new standard for cleaning products at PCC will support greener, non-toxic laundry detergents, dish soaps, disinfectant sprays and other household cleansers. Among other things, the cleaning standard requires products to be ammonia-free, phosphate-free and free of phthalates (chemical compounds that make plastics more flexible and durable.) The products are not tested on animals.

In many ways the cleaning standard simply formalizes rules that PCC has had in place for many years. “It establishes official criteria,” helping shoppers know what to expect and giving clear guidance to PCC vendors and merchandisers, said quality standards manager Rebecca Robinson.

In other areas the standard sets new guard rails.

For instance, quaternary ammonium compounds, a.k.a. “quats,” used in many disinfectant sprays and wipes, will not be allowed in PCC cleaning products. That means PCC will no longer stock liquid fabric softeners or dryer sheets, which rely on “quats” to function.

The Environmental Working Group says prolonged or chronic exposure to some of those compounds “has been linked to significant health harms.”

Robinson said that there’s still a lot we don’t know about quats, but as they’re becoming more widely used their risks are becoming more apparent. “We are trying to take a little bit more of a precautionary stance with this…” she said. “As far as we can tell that they have some impact on human health and aquatic health.”

While there are no quat-free liquid fabric softeners and dryer sheets, PCC has started stocking some alternate laundry options. One new product is wool dryer balls, which absorb moisture and help laundry dry quickly. They’re reusable, and their reduced drying time would in theory save energy and associated costs. (See below for other ways to replace fabric softeners and dryer sheets.)

Requiring ingredient labels

Under the standard, all cleaning products carried at PCC also must disclose their ingredients. While federal standards have required ingredient labels on foods for many years, there’s no legal counterpart requiring companies to disclose ingredients on cleaning products.

“It’s a very unregulated industry. There are not a lot of laws around what has to be on the label, and so consumers are very in the dark about what they are buying,” said Dr. Claire Zimmerman, an adjunct professor of naturopathic medicine at Bastyr University (See this story for Zimmerman’s general cleaning tips).

Federal regulators have taken action in the past on chemicals that have shown clear and direct health hazards, as when the Food and Drug Administration banned Red Dye #2 from food, drugs and cosmetics in 1976 after new evidence linked the dye to cancers.  The government’s taken a more hands-off approach to chemicals where the risks are hazier or harder to tease out.

“These companies (producing cleaning products) have strong lobbying influence and when something isn’t an acute safety issue we tend not to see regulations around it,” Robinson said. “These things that don’t have these really obvious cause and effect tend to be less regulated and taken less seriously.”

The PCC standard requires ingredients to be listed on the product package or, if the package is too small, to have clear information about where the ingredients can be found online. (QR codes are acceptable with some guidelines.)

Practicing what you preach

The standard also includes guidelines for products used to clean PCC stores. For instance, store staff and any third-party cleaning services are advised to use cleaning products that minimize per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), parabens and similar synthetic antimicrobials, petrochemical artificial dyes and fragrances.

Soaps provided for shoppers and staff in PCC’s public bathrooms must comply with PCC’s personal care products standard.

“People are shopping our stores for a reason. So when they go to use our restrooms, they should have access to what they would buy for themselves,” Robinson said. “If we don’t sell hand soaps that have all this garbage in them, then that shouldn’t be what we are making people use in our restrooms when they come into our stores.”

Highlights of PCC’s cleaning standard

The overall intent of the cleaning standard is to “provide the safest options available to our shoppers by sourcing from companies that are committed to reducing the health and environmental impacts of their products and prioritizing ingredient transparency.”

Full details are online, but they include:

• PCC does not accept cleaning products with ingredients that are classified as known human carcinogens according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), National Toxicology Program (NTP), NIH National Cancer Institute, or similar agency.
• No phosphates, phthalates, PFAS, quats or ammonia, among other ingredient restrictions
• Prioritizing ingredients that are plant and mineral based, and biodegradable.
• No cleaning products using pressurized aerosol sprays with gas propellants
• No products that have been tested on animals.
• Vendors must abide by PCC’s Packaging Standard and are encouraged to minimize packaging and use materials that are compostable, made from recycled content, reusable and/or easily recycled.
• PCC prioritizes vendors who pursue third party certifications that verify sustainability or safety ingredient claims (e.g., Made Safe or USDA Organic).