A study spanning 13 years has found high levels of toxic lead in leather and faux leather fashion accessories including handbags, wallets, shoes, and belts sold at leading US off-price retailers Ross and Burlington.
- In 2022 alone, more than 25% of the fashion accessories purchased from Ross and Burlington and tested contained elevated lead levels above 0.03% and up to 1.7%, nonprofit watchdog Center for Environmental Health (CEH) has said in a report.
- Over the last decade, CEH has notified retailers Burlington, Marshalls, Nordstrom Rack, Ross, and TJ Maxx nearly 500 times that they were selling specific fashion accessories containing elevated levels of lead. Ross and Burlington accounted for over 300 of those notices.
- This report was authored by CEH staff Caitlin Moher and Martin Bañuelos.
THE DANGER: Employees and consumers working and shopping in Ross and Burlington’s over 2,500 retail locations can be exposed to lead in these fashion accessories when they touch the products with their hands and then touch their mouths.
- Exposure can put people at a higher risk of high blood pressure and kidney damage and can put pregnant people at a risk of reproductive harm.
- Additionally, if children are exposed to lead through these products, they can face irreversible behavioural changes and learning difficulties.
THE KEY FACTS: Ross and Burlington cater to lower-income consumers, and most of their California storefronts are located in communities already facing environmental, health, and other socioeconomic pressures.
- CEH found more faux leather than genuine leather fashion accessories contained lead. Lead was more frequently observed in belts sold attached to clothes as a set than in belts sold as stand-alone products.
- At both Ross and Burlington, the majority (87%) of lead-containing handbags and wallets sampled in 2022 showed a pattern of faux leather materials on the interior lining of the bags containing excessive levels of lead, whereas the exterior faux-leather material tended to be lead-free.
- In 2022, CEH found, over half of lead-containing fashion accessories purchased at Ross and Burlington had Proposition 65 warnings. Some of these warnings were hidden in small print, on tags inside of handbags, and on the bottom of shoes.
- In 2022, CEH found that the interior lining of faux leather handbags and wallets more frequently contained lead than the exterior lining.
