Menards says it is no longer buying toxic paint thinner that groups are trying to ban

Menards said it has stopped purchasing paint removers that contain a pair of chemicals blamed in dozens of deaths after groups sent letters to company officials last year saying they wanted the home improvement retailer to phase out and ban the sale of the products.

On Tuesday, 17 Midwest health and environmental groups publicly asked the Eau Claire-based company to stop selling the chemicals — methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone, or NMP.

Other companies, including Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Sherwin-Williams and AutoZone, earlier agreed to stop selling paint strippers with the compounds.

“The chemicals are dangerous and should not be on store shelves,” the groups said in a letter to company founder John R. Menard Jr. 

The chemicals are used in products with brand names that include Klean Strip, Goof Off and Jasco.

The organizations include the Wisconsin offices of the Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Wisconsin Environmental Health Network.

Menards responded with a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“All of our paint removal products meet stringent US Government Standards. We have not been contacted by any US Government Agency about any changes to the US Government Standards.  However, to be on the safe side, we are no longer purchasing paint removal products that contain any amount of methylene chloride or NMP.”

Still on store shelves

Spokesman Jeff Abbott said in an email that Menards stopped buying the products for its stores sometime last year. He said it is difficult to say how long it will take to exhaust supplies because of the effect spring weather conditions has on painting. 

Abbott, who said he was not aware of the groups' efforts, said the input from public interest groups did not play a role in the company's decision. 

The initiative involving Menards is part of a broader campaign by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, which have been pressing retailers to stop selling products using the chemicals.

Mike Schade of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families said in a statement: 

"We are cautiously optimistic that Menards is finally beginning to address these dangerous products. It's been seven months since we first wrote to the company calling for action and citing the risks to their customers' health — and their lives."

He said that Menards should pull the products immediately, and until they're no longer on shelves, it will be a "buyer beware situation."

NRDC and Safe Chemicals Healthy Families previously sent communications to John Menard and other company officials on the chemicals on July 2, July 24 and Aug. 24, according to copies provided to the Journal Sentinel. 

In a July 24 email, the groups warned that they would soon start publicizing the names of those “that have yet to take action on these harmful products.”

A spokeswoman for NRDC and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families said they did not get a response from Menards from the July and August correspondence.

Menards has more than 300 stores in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to the company.

Forbes in 2018 ranked John Menard the 134th richest person in the world with a net worth of $11.5 billion. 

Chemicals represent 'unreasonable risk'

Methylene chloride and NMP have been under review by federal regulators.

At the end of the Obama administration, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency said that it found the chemicals represented an “unreasonable risk” and began steps to ban them from most paint stripping uses.

The EPA said with acute exposures, methylene chloride primarily affects the brain and can cause dizziness and loss of consciousness. It can also damage the lungs, liver and kidneys. Cancer risks include liver cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma. 

Since 1976, more than 40 deaths had been attributed to methylene chloride when people used them for removing paints and other coatings, agency documents show.

“In some cases, two or more individuals have died during a single job when air concentrations quickly reached lethal levels, potentially in less than 10 minutes,” according to the documents. 

“In other situations, individuals have died when entering rooms or facilities in which paint or coating removal was previously conducted and air concentrations of methylene chloride remained dangerously high.”

In December, the EPA under the Trump administration moved ahead with plans to ban the chemicals for use by consumers, but commercial operators could still use the paint strippers with training.

That didn't go far enough, in the view of some. In January, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, a public interest group in Vermont and the mothers of two young men who died from breathing methylene chloride filed a lawsuit in federal court in Vermont against the EPA for failing to finalize a ban on the chemicals.

RELATED:Menards joins other retailers in dropping products with toxic chemical

In 2015, Menards agreed to stop selling vinyl flooring containing a class of toxic chemicals called phthalates after being pressured by public interest groups — and after many competitors said they would stop selling the flooring. 

The chemicals have been linked to reproductive and developmental problems, and the concern is that they could migrate from flooring and potentially harm children.