By Paul Swiech
NORMAL -- About 30 community members rallied outside Target late Thursday afternoon to protest the retailer’s selling of products that contain a substance that the protesters say is linked to cancer and birth defects.
PVC (polyvinyl chloride), sometimes called vinyl, is found in some packaging as well as some children’s toys, teething rings, shower curtains, lunch boxes and shampoo bottles, said rally organizer Laurine Brown, a mother, Illinois Wesleyan University environmental health instructor and breast cancer survivor.
PVC releases toxic chemicals, she said. While other retailers, such as Wal-Mart, are phasing out PVC products and packaging, Target has not responded to requests to do the same, Brown said.
However, in a statement released to the Pantagraph, Target said the Center for Health and Environmental Justice — a national organization that organized similar protests Thursday at more than 200 Target stores nationwide — was “grossly misrepresenting Target’s position.”
“We are intensively assessing our use of PVC and the viability of alternatives and actively pursuing opportunities, in collaboration with our vendors, to reduce PVC in our products and packaging,” the Target statement said.
Target actions include replacing full PVC clamshell packaging with a modified option and moving from plastic to corrugated packaging for some dinnerware.
Target said it has not established a timeline for elimination of PVC because it hasn’t identified suitable alternatives available for mass production.
The rally was conducted on public property facing Veterans Parkway outside the Shoppes at College Hills, which includes Target. After the rally, protesters walked to Target, where they gave a letter to a Target representative.
Several children and IWU students wore coveralls that they described as hazardous-materials suits. Protesters held up signs that read “Target rocks, PVC stinks, stop selling poison plastic” and chanted “Hey Target, what do you say? How much dioxin did you produce today?”
Dioxin is a cancer-causing agent produced in the manufacture of PVC.
Greg Arndt, an IWU junior and a student in one of Brown’s classes, said other countries are ahead of the United States in phasing out PVC. Karie Ridinger of Normal said her son Justin, 7, is allergic to chlorine so he can’t play with toys that have PVC.
Sage McCracken, 12, a Normal resident and seventh-grader at St. Mary’s School in Bloomington, spoke as a member of Peace and Justice Kids, an affiliate of Bloomington-Normal Citizens for Peace and Justice.
“We are all about making our future generations better,” she told the Pantagraph. “I don’t want cancer, I don’t want other people to get it and I don’t want my kids to get it.
“We are out here to save lives, man,” McCracken said.
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