“If I was a parent, I would avoid it entirely.”
A Washington state investigation has shown that pieces of jewelry adorning children’s dresses that were sold by national retailers such as J.C. Penney and Dillard’s contained toxic metals, the Seattle Times reports. The article says that the state’s Department of Ecology tested 27 pieces of jewelry from dresses purchased last October – at physical stores and online – and found that five of the pieces had extremely high levels of cadmium and lead. The dresses are specifically marketed toward young girls, who would be at risk if they were to swallow the jewelry or put it in their mouth, for example.
“These are astonishingly high levels,” Charles Margulis, media director for the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, CA, told the news outlet. “Five out of 27 is way too high a risk to take. If I was a parent, I would avoid it entirely.”
As part of a prepared statement issued to the news outlet, a J.C. Penney spokesperson said: “JCPenney has an established standard for cadmium in all children’s products, including jewelry. We require our suppliers to meet that standard and to have test data to support their compliance. In light of the recent reports, we are reaching out to our children’s product suppliers to ensure that they are meeting our requirements. As soon as we learned of these test results, we removed these items from our inventory and they are no longer available for purchase.”
Read more at the Seattle Times
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Retiring? Let Wilkerson Do the Heavy Lifting
Retirement can be a great part of life. As Nanji Singadia puts it, “I want to retire and enjoy my life. I’m 78 now and I just want to take a break.” That said, Nanji decided that the best way to move ahead was to contact the experts at Wilkerson. He chose them because he knew that closing a store is a heavy lift.
To maximize sales and move on to the next, best chapter of his life, he called Wilkerson—but not before asking his industry friends for their opinion. He found that Wilkerson was the company most recommended and says their professionalism, experience and the homework they did before the launch all helped to make his going out of business sale a success. “Wilkerson were working on the sale a month it took place,” he says. “They did a great job.”