Do people know most paper receipts are harmful to their health?
I'm going to get up on my soapbox for a minute, but do people realize how pretty much everyone is being overloaded with endocrine disruptors like BPA/BPS on a near-daily basis??
I don't think many people understand that ever since most of the world transitioned to thermal paper receipts (cheaper than ink), almost every receipt you handle from the gas station to the grocery store to the Square terminal printer at the local co-op is coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or its chemical cousin Bisphenol-S (BPS).
These chemicals have not only been proven to cause reproductive harm to human and animals, they've also been linked to obesity and attention disorders.
Not sure if your receipt is a thermal receipt? If you scratch it with a coin and it turns dark, it's thermal.
BPA/BPS can enter the skin to a depth such that it is no longer removable by washing hands. When taking hold of a receipt consisting of thermal printing paper for five seconds, roughly 1 μg BPA is transferred to the forefinger and the middle finger. If the skin is dry or greasy, it is about ten times more.
Think of how many receipts you handle every day. It's even worse for cashiers and tellers, who may handle hundreds in a single shift. It is also a class issue, since many people who work retail and food service are lower-income and will suffer worse health consequences over time from the near-constant exposure.
Not only that, receipts printed with thermal ink are NOT recyclable, as they pollute the rest of the paper products with the chemicals.
People don't know this and recycle them anyway, so when you buy that "green" toilet paper that says "100% recycled"? Yup, you are probably wiping your most sensitive areas with those same chemicals (for this reason, I buy bamboo or sugarcane toilet paper as a sustainable alternative to recycled paper).
This page from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has some good links if you want to learn more.
As consumers, we need to demand better from our businesses and from our governments. We need regulation of these chemicals yesterday.
If you are a buyer or decision-maker for a business, the link above also contains a shortlist of receipt paper manufacturers that are phenol-free.
If you work at a register, ask customers if they want a receipt. If they don't and you can end the transaction without printing one, don't print one!
As a consumer, fold receipts with the ink on the inside, since that's where the coating is. Some more good tips here.
And whatever you do, DO NOT RECYCLE THERMAL RECEIPTS
