The Environmental Protection Agency is cracking down on the grocery retailer Chedraui USA, which runs El Super and Smart & Final stores, for peddling unapproved disinfectant products, some with toxic chemicals that lacked appropriate warning labels and registration, in their Arizona, California, and Nevada locations.
According to a statement by the EPA, Chedraui will be shelling out $472,369 in penalties to settle the claims related to their violations of federal pesticide law, by selling disinfectants that were not registered with EPA, which is required under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the agency pointed out that the illegal products have been removed from stores, ensuring customers' safety from these potentially ineffective and hazardous cleaning agents.
Amy Miller, EPA Pacific Southwest Region Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division Director, underscored the danger, "Unregistered disinfectants can not only be ineffective, but can contain dangerous ingredients," she alerted, adding that it's up to companies to protect their patrons from such illegal, possibly harmful disinfectant products, which can be done by ensuring they are registered with the EPA, as reported by KTNV.
The EPA's findings at the El Super store in Santa Ana, California, included two pesticide products — S&C Sanitizer and S&C Disinfectant — containing quaternary ammonia, requiring a danger label due to high toxicity, and Prinex Sanysol, which flaunted "unverified statements about their effectiveness," all distributed on at least 61 occasions, while at a Smart & Final in Hayward, California, there was the "Perfect Professional Advanced Multi-Surface Sanitizer," which also made unverified claims related to killing germs, this product found to be distributed at least 53 times, as per the EPA.
Chedraui and Smart & Final have confirmed that the implicated products are no longer being distributed or sold in their stores, taking steps to prevent the sell of illegal products moving forward.
