Beware the Free Swag and Conference Junk
"We're in such a murky, dirty world of promotional products."
There’s one toxic strand I noticed when I was reporting for my book that I didn’t pull on or follow. But it’s since stuck with me: promo and swag stuff.
When I purchased a bunch of fashion pieces to have tested, one mall-brand purchase came with a free-gift bag that had a musky, pungent smell that stung my nostrils and made me sneeze.
I had to whittle down which items would be tested, because each would cost at least $1,200. I decided I wanted the free-gift bag tested. The representative from the lab agreed. “Promo is always a problem,” he said.
Though the lab detected .2 ppm of nickel and .027 ppm of DEHP, a phthalate and endocrine disruptor, the bag technically passed. Both substances were under the commonly-agreed-upon “safe” limits. (Whether those limits are based on solid research and assumptions is another, longer discussion.) So I let it go.
But this week I’m revisiting it. Because free swag—the super cheap totes you get at conferences, the free cosmetic bags you get with purchase, the t-shirt that pops out of a cannon at the game—are a huge risk for toxicity.
Think about it: nobody wants to spend any more than they have to for something they are giving away to a bunch of randos who are walking past the booth at the trade show. A lot of people are buying this stuff from the cheapest manufacturers they found on the internet. It’s ultimately sketchier than ultra-fast fashion.
When I posted on LinkedIn about my suspicions, I heard from Patrick Marsden, a partner at MaCher, a promotional product company. MaCher is B Corp-certified and does a lot of work in sustainability, including using recycled materials, pushing clients to create reusable instead of disposable products and (most importantly for this conversation) testing all its products to ensure they are non-toxic.
He brought Jen Krischer, Head of Product Development and Circular Innovation, along to our conversation. It was incredibly enlightening, and a must-read if you work at a fashion brand, corporation, or startup that purchases branded swag to give away.
Alden: Have you worked with a company that has been alarmed by the potential for hazardous substances in its promotional products, like they brought it up as a concern as part of the design process?
Patrick: I would say 99% of the time, it's us bringing it up to clients. Compliance is such a big part of our protection for our customers. Saying, hey, if you work with us, everything that we create is tested. Whether it's the paint on the zipper pull to the body material, to the liner, to the to the liner of the liner, whatever it is, every single element is tested.
We work with a lot of travel companies, a lot of beauty companies, a fair amount of alcohol, health and wellness, and hotel space. I would say of all the industries we work in, beauty are probably the most aware of material components in the products that we make. And very often, particularly in non beauty sectors, they're not aware that that's even something that they should be aware of. So we have to do a lot of explaining on Prop 65 legislation, which is the California material compliance law, which is the strictest one in the states. So that's the one that we use as our minimum benchmark in the US. And then the European versions and Australian versions, if we're working in those markets.
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