Most shoes
shipped to the United States travel long distances by cargo ship, and
need protection from moisture, mold and fungus. In order to prevent this
problem, certain shoe companies are placing chemically treated stickers
inside shoe boxes that help to prevent mold and fungus. These stickers
fail to identify the potentially dangerous, harmful ingredients they may
contain and are marked simply with the words “anti-mold”. Although
stickers are supposed to be tested and registered with the EPA to
protect consumers, many shoe companies are using unregistered, unproven,
and untested materials with potentially harmful chemicals in their shoe
boxes.
Since
they are used at top retailers such as Wal-Mart, Saks, Macys, Whole
Foods, Nordstrom’s, Dillard’s, Bob Ton, Belk, Amazon, Zappos, TJX,
Footlocker, and others, and in popular brands like Aerosoles, Born,
Calvin Klein, Coach, ECCO, Eurosoft, Isola, Kenneth Cole, Liz Claiborne,
Minnetonka, Rocket Dog, Roxy, Sofft Shoe Co., Softspots, and Vera Wang,
consumers and workers have a false sense of comfort and security. In
addition to containing the shoes worn by children and adults, these
boxes are often later used to store baseball cards, family photos or
even small pets. These are simple everyday acts done with no knowledge
of the potentially harmful toxins contained in an unassuming sticker
affixed inside each box.
Given
the potential dangers for our kids and our pets we believe that it is
critical that all materials placed in shoe boxes for shipping should be
properly tested and approved by the EPA for safety. We believe that
many companies using these unapproved products are not even aware of the
dangers, and would change if made aware of the risk to our safety.
Please let the shoe manufacturers and retailers know to stop using unapproved and harmful chemicals in shoe packaging.
