MADISON, Ind. — Environmental Laboratories Inc.’s Safe Home Bacteria in Drinking Water Test Kit has made its retail debut at Walmart.

Environmental Laboratories said Friday that Safe Home has landed distribution as a featured product in nearly 500 Walmart stores nationwide.  The product became available in stores this month and will be available for a short-term test market.

Walmart is the first major U.S. retailer to carry the Safe Home brand test kits, making it more convenient for consumers to test their home’s drinking water for bacteria. Over 2 million test kits have been sold worldwide via Environmental Laboratories’ online retail site EnviroTestKits.com and through other global distributors.

“Securing retail distribution with a big-box store like Walmart is a pivotal point in our company’s mission to provide consumers the tools and knowledge necessary to keep their loved ones healthy,” according to environmental scientist Chris Myers, president and chief executive officer of Environmental Laboratories. “We are very excited and thankful for this partnership with Walmart, and appreciate that they recognize the importance of offering the Safe Home Bacteria in Drinking Water Test Kit to their valued customers.

“Presently, Walmart only carries this one Safe Home product. However, we offer more than a dozen different drinking water test kits on our website that will test for up to 200 individual contaminants,” Myers added. “We are also presenting our Safe Home test kit brands to numerous other box stores between now and the end of this calendar year. We desire to make Safe Home test kits available to everyone.”

Environmental Laboratories said concerns over U.S. tap water safety — whether well- or city-sourced — have escalated in recent years, and studies show U.S. tap water is often contaminated with a range of harmful contaminants. These include bacteria, toxic metals, in-organics like nitrates, physical properties like hard water, organics like pesticides, and other cancer causing compounds.

With the Safe Home Bacteria in Drinking Water Test Kit, consumers can now test their drinking water supply in three steps for harmful bacteria. The patent-pending product comes from scientists with over 150 years of combined experience in drinking water testing.

If results show contaminant problems, the company provides its customers with resources to possible solutions, empowering them to make informed decisions and take appropriate action. These resources are available free on their website at EnviroTestKits.com. Here, the public can also find an extensive database about more than 200 contaminants, including sources of each contaminant, noted harmful side-effects, EPA Maximum Contamination Levels (MCLs) for human consumption, links to state and federal studies about each contaminant and access to multiple drinking water treatment professionals.