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If there’s one question UCS gets asked a lot it’s this: “Why don’t you folks all work together?” But here at the Union of Concerned Scientists, collaboration is a guiding principle. We partner with many of the nation’s leading scientists, environmental and consumer protection organizations, and decision-makers in government to achieve our common goal: a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
Right now, we’re teaming up with our friends at the League of Conservation Voters to pressure top retailers to keep hazardous chemicals out of their products.
Join us in taking action with the League of Conservation Voters. Send a message now asking the nation’s biggest retailers to keep toxic chemicals off their shelves >>
For years, UCS has worked as part of the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Coalition to ensure that policy makers and consumers have access to accurate scientific information about the toxic chemicals in our communities and consumer products. Like you, we believe that people need access to adequate information about toxics if they are to make informed decisions that protect the health of their families. Now you can take the next step by taking action with the League of Conservation Voters to urge retailers to take toxic chemicals out of their stores.  Tell our nation’s biggest retailers to take toxic chemicals out of their stores! Add your name to our petition for safe products here >>
Want to keep harmful chemicals out of our everyday products?
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When you stopped to grab a bottle of shampoo, did anyone tell you that it could contain cancer-causing chemicals? Have you checked if that shirt you bought is kept wrinkle-free by formaldehyde? Do you know if that couch you bought is releasing chemicals that could harm your children’s mental development?
Most of the time, I don’t. It’s impossible to know all the right questions to ask when we go to the store to keep ourselves and our families safe. And frankly, it shouldn’t be our job. The stores where we shop should watch out for us by asking their suppliers to keep toxic chemicals out of their products. But they won’t do it unless we make them.
Sign our petition urging the biggest retailers to keep products with toxic chemicals off their shelves now >>
In April, we joined with the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition on a campaign called “Mind the Store,” which asks major retailers to protect us by keeping the Hazardous 100+ toxic chemicals out of their products.
More than 40,000 people took action and we were heard! Target and Walmart responded to our petition by announcing that they would take some of the most dangerous chemicals out of the products they sell.
Now we need your help to make sure that other major retailers like Walgreens, Costco, and Safeway follow suit. These retailers are often stuck in the same place we are. Our broken federal laws mean they have limited access to basic health and safety information on toxic chemicals sold in their very own stores.
But they have the power to ask the questions and make the demands to keep us safe. And as we saw with Target and Walmart, if they hear from enough of their customers, these major retailers will tell their suppliers to take theseHazardous 100+ chemicals out of their products.
So help us show these major retailers that their customers are demanding toxic-free products. Sign our petition here >>
Our nation’s chemical laws may be broken, but we don’t have to wait for progress in Washington to start making our stores and homes safer.
With your voice and the thousands of others dedicated to creating safer chemicals that will lead to healthier families, we can create real change and accountability for the suppliers now and make sure our neighbors are minding their stores!
Sincerely,  Vanessa Kritzer Online Campaigns Manager League of Conservation Voters |
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Safeway is offering responsibly fished canned tuna at a lower price than conventional brands like Chicken of the Sea. It’s time for Walmart to do the same.
Take action and ask Walmart to start selling sustainably caught canned tuna.
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Walmart’s own brand of tuna might be low cost. But it comes at a high price to our oceans.
That’s because what you’ll find inside a can of Walmart’s ‘Great Value’ tuna has been caught in the some of the most destructive ways imaginable. These destructive fishing practices unnecessarily kill tens of thousands of sharks, sea turtles, rays and other sea creatures every year.
It doesn’t have to be this way — even for a company as big as Walmart.
Safeway just recently began selling sustainably-sourced tuna under its own label on a national scale. This “Responsibly Caught” Safeway Select tuna also costs less than cans from major companies like Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea. We know it can be done and it’s time for Walmart to do the same thing. Help us send 30,000 messages to the company in the next 48 hours by taking action today.
Take action and ask Walmart to start selling sustainably caught canned tuna.
Walmart is such a large buyer that it could force the entire canned tuna industry to change. We’re talking about altering industrial fishing practices on the scale necessary to actually save our oceans. It’s what consumers want, and Safeway has already proven that it can be done in a cost-effective manner.
Companies like Chicken of the Sea are blocking progress by wanting to continue with business as usual: yanking tuna out of our oceans by any means necessary and slaughtering anything else that gets in the way.
Walmart has the power to get the tuna industry to clean up its act, but it is going to need to hear from the public first before it does anything.
Destructive fishing practices are one of the biggest threats facing our oceans right now. The use of fish-aggregating devices (FADs) is particularly gruesome.
FADs, which are basically floating objects placed in the ocean, don’t just attract tuna. They attract all sorts of life — including sharks, sea turtles and a bunch of other species. When the ship returns, it scoops up everything that has gathered around the FAD with a net. Hardly anything is spared in this process, and the crews just toss the lifeless remains of whatever they don’t want back into the ocean.
Chicken of the Sea, Bumble Bee and Starkist all catch their tuna in this way.
Safeway doesn’t.
Hopefully, Walmart will follow their lead after they hear from enough people like you.
For the oceans,
Casson Trenor Greenpeace Senior Markets Campaigner |
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| We’ve just heard some incredible news. Just a few days ago, Ryan Young didn’t know if he would ever get his job back. He’d been suspended without pay after he intervened to stop the assault of a pregnant woman, and Safeway wouldn’t give any indication of when he’d be allowed back.But something remarkable happened. Douglas Castro, a customer at Ryan’s Safeway, heard about the incident and he started a petition to reinstate Ryan — and people from all over the country rallied behind him. You and over 180,000 others signed Douglas’ petition asking Safeway to reinstate Ryan with full back-pay, and Ryan’s just been told he’ll go back to work next week!
Ryan’s case was featured on CNN, and the campaign was covered in national media from CBS to Business Insider. And after weeks of silence from the company, Safeway finally announced Ryan would return to work.
Ryan says he’s “deeply grateful” to everyone who signed the petition. “Knowing that I had all these people standing behind me and that I wasn’t alone really helped me through this difficult time,” said Ryan. “Thank you again to everyone who took the time to help me out.”
It’s an amazing victory. It means that an expectant father has his job back — but it’s also something more. In the past, employees often had to fight these battles alone. Doug‘s victory is proof that this is changing — and that when people across the country come together, they have the power to make a real difference.
Thanks for being a change-maker,
Tim and the Change.org team
P.S. Right now, another urgent petition to save a loyal employee could use your support.
- Larry Sapienza was fired from his job at his local library — and according to his community, it’s because he was used as a scapegoat when a decision made by his superiors backfired. Sarah, a former co-worker, has started a petition to have him re-hired.
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What would you do if you were in a grocery store, you turned into an aisle, and you saw a man beating his pregnant girlfriend? Would you run for help? How long would that take? Would it be too late by the time security arrived?
Ryan Young worked at the meat counter of a Safeway supermarket. Reports say that when Ryan saw a customer push and kick his pregnant girlfriend last month, Ryan stepped in to stop the beating.
According to the press, Ryan’s actions earned him praise from his local police chief, but not from his employer. Instead of treating Ryan like a hero, Safeway claimed Ryan should have called security and suspended him without pay while it investigates the “altercation.” Pending the results of that investigation, Ryan could be fired for good.
Doug Castro is a security guard who shops at the Safeway where Ryan works, and he believes Ryan did the right thing by intervening. That’s why Doug started a petition on Change.org asking Safeway to lift Ryan’s suspension and give him backpay for the income he lost during his involuntary time away from work. Click here to sign Doug’s petition.
Ryan says one reason he felt so compelled to intervene is that he’s an expectant dad himself — his wife is 5 months pregnant. “We’re expecting a child,” Ryan says. “I’ve been suspended for just about a month now without pay for doing something I feel was right, that police said was right.”
Indeed, local Police Chief Ron Langford told reporters, “In my mind, in this case Ryan did the right thing.”
The police have already turned over security footage of the incident to prosecutors so that the man who beat his girlfriend can be charged, yet Ryan has been suspended for almost a month with no income. Doug believes that if thousands of people sign his petition, Safeway will bow to public pressure and put Ryan back on the job.
Click here to sign Doug’s petition demanding that Safeway bring back Ryan Young, an employee who was suspended after defending a pregnant woman.
Thanks for being a change-maker,
– Tim and the Change.org team |
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