Why Shopping at Costco Could Be Making You Sick

You know that oppressive feeling that comes over you after passing through the manned warehouse doors of Costco? It's not just product overload, although the visual onslaught of discount merchandise under artificial lights and without any open windows can be extremely daunting.

It could be your body's response to the toxic plastic and corrosive chemicals permeating the bowling alley lanes of electronics, landfill-bound picnic supplies and sprayed imported produce and flowers, and the dizzying assortment of scented cleaning agents and softeners in super-duper-sized vats.

On a recent shopping trip to a South San Francisco Costco store, my 11-year-old daughter and I experienced flu-like nausea and headaches from inhaling all of the above, plus the putrid, pungent sanitizer the store was sloshing on its surfaces to combat the diverse parade of fresh germs. Gag me with a disposable spoon! I have smelled the ferocious and foul anti-green, and her name is Costco. A Twitter subscriber named Robert Andersen once wrote: "Costco smells of the American dream; and relish." I can only hope the perfume I inhaled was not the American dream.

My child and I, both prone to allergies and sharing a keen sense of smell, turned to one another, gasped, and ran outside to the parking lot for relief. Forget those tempting bottles of wine and three-pack storage containers I thought I needed. Saving a few bucks was no longer worth the price.

You see, Costco is truly a warehouse, with open doors at the entrance and inadequate ventilation, so the off-gassing and odor emissions are sealed within. Mind you, I'm just a recreational Costco shopper, someone who diverts occasionally from the decidedly safe, small, outdoor, local and organic options to roam the bulk toilet paper range. It made me wonder about weekly exposure to this wholesale poor zone for America's new arrivals; lower- and middle-class families; frugal school and office purchasers and any one of us on a tight food and household budget.

It also made me wonder about daily exposure for Costco employees, like the janitors who were wiping down the floors and the nice ladies doing the popular food demonstrations. "Have some hummus," they offer, sweetly. "Hey, have a gas mask, lady. I think you might need it."

A call to one of the membership managers at the South San Francisco store told me that the cleaning product the maintenance crew was using the day I visited was none other than Formula 409 All-Purpose Cleaner. According to Reina (first names only allowed), this may be a product specific to this one warehouse and there may be a corporate-wide cleaning solution used elsewhere. According to Bradley Corporation, 409 does not contain ammonia or bleach, just non-ionic and cationic surfactants, solvents and dye. Yet I'm certain I detected ammonia and bleach that day and I have a feeling it wasn't just the cleaner making me sick, but the blend of the agents with other off-gasses and emissions being released into the largely sealed environment.

True, not all of the products used or sold at Costco reek and have the potential to make you feel ill, but many do, especially after opening, including the Novaform Memory Foam Mattress Topper, which reportedly 3,400 customers complained off-gassed for days when taken out of the package.

In 2008, a lawsuit was filed against artificial turf purchased by Costco because it contained harmful lead that can come off onto children's hands when they play, exposing them to toxic dust that can be ingested or inhaled as the turf ages and weathers in the sun. Surfing Costco on the Web will show most of the cases against the discount superstore have involved personal injury (a food demonstrator's foot crushed by a flatbed cart), sexual discrimination, organic food fraud and cheating employees and customers out of what was promised, e.g. not enough shrimp in those platters and renewing memberships before needed. But that doesn't mean we aren't getting sick from exposure to the warehouse and its products.