Q&A: Reduced BPA, BPS in receipts highlights awareness; alternatives still needed
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Key takeaways :
- Use of the endocrine-disrupting chemicals BPA and BPS in receipts has decreased since 2017 and use of alternative chemicals is up.
- Digital receipts and no receipts are better options for consumers.
A recent report from the Ecology Center’s Healthy Stuff Lab found a shift away from use of endocrine-disrupting bisphenol chemicals in retailer receipts to non-bisphenol alternatives from 2017 to 2022.
For the report, researchers tested 374 paper receipts from 144 major retailer chains in 22 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Bisphenol S (BPS) was found in nearly 80% of tested receipts, down from 84% in 2017. Bisphenol A (BPA) was found in less than 1% of tested receipts, down from 9% in 2017. The researchers also found that 20% of tested receipts used safer chemical alternatives, which is an increase from 2% in 2017.
An expanded version of the study that includes receipts from smaller, local businesses will be published later this year in a peer-reviewed journal, according to Gillian Z. Miller, PhD, senior scientist at the Ecology Center.
Healio spoke with Miller about these findings, future research on bisphenol chemicals in receipt paper and the goal to remove these toxic chemicals overall.
Healio: What were the findings of your study?
Miller: We found that with large, national regional retailers, BPS-based receipts have mostly replaced BPA-based receipts. That is the result of a lot of press about BPA, some regulation and companies becoming aware that BPA was an issue. Unfortunately, BPS is not a good substitute for BPA, but thermal paper made with BPS was marketed heavily as being BPA-free and that’s clearly had a big impact on the marketplace. BPS was in about 80% of those retailers’ receipts, and we tested well over 300 receipts in that category.
If you combine BPA and BPS, which are the two chemicals in the class of bisphenols that are common in receipts, the overall usage of bisphenols has decreased from 93% in 2017 when we tested receipts to 80% in 2022. That shows there’s some increasing awareness that bisphenols as a class are a problem.
We found that the use of alternatives that are not bisphenols increased from 2% to 20% of all the tested receipts. There are a few different ones that we identified, and we didn’t go into detail in this report because we have an upcoming scientific paper where we’re going to go into a little more detail about what we found with alternatives.
Healio: Is it good news that BPS in receipt paper dropped from 84% to 80% and that BPA use dropped from 9% to less than 1%? Or should we focus on the work left to be done?
Miller: It is good and shows that a lot of retailers are aware that thermal paper is a source of exposure to hazardous chemicals. I hope that they realize that the primary hazard there is to the workers who handle a lot of receipts. This shows some increasing awareness, but it’s also still a very high number of companies still using BPS receipts, which shows that the awareness is not widespread enough.
We need a lot more awareness to avoid that type of thermal paper. But we also are trying to emphasize strongly in this report that the best solution is to reduce the printing of receipts in the first place by offering digital and no receipt options, which according to some surveys, people want.
So, the work left to be done is twofold: It’s to get the word out that you can drastically reduce the printing of receipts — there are a lot of benefits to both the environment and human health. For the receipts you’re still going to print, we want companies to get out of bisphenols entirely and at least use one of the alternatives. Not a perfect solution, but better.
Healio: What do we know about the adverse effects of these chemicals in general and in terms of their volume in paper receipts and other consumer items?
Miller: We know a lot about BPA. It has been studied a great deal because of its ubiquity. It used to be used in a lot of different plastic products and food can linings and was extremely common as a precursor for polycarbonate plastics, which included baby bottles. That’s the one area that a lot of people have heard about, that there used to be BPA in baby bottles. That has apparently been phased out.
BPS, which is related to BPA, has not been subject to quite as much study, but has been researched fairly extensively. BPA has a lot of similar effects to BPS. Things we know about BPA are that its chemical structure mimics estrogen to a degree. It interacts with estrogen receptors, and that can have a cascade to a whole varied set of possible effects in the body. It also can interact with androgen receptors, so hormone-related cancers are areas of big concern with BPA, and that includes breast, ovarian and prostate cancer because of the androgen interaction as well.
But there is a surprising list of other apparent possible effects from BPA. There are cardiovascular effects. I’m not an expert in the mechanisms underlying any of these things, but BPA has strong evidence of being able to affect blood pressure in a negative way and to increase the risks for CVD and type 2 diabetes. There are both animal studies and human studies supporting that body of evidence. And of course, human studies are usually epidemiological and looking at populations and it’s much more difficult to show causal pathways. Those studies can be informed by doing animal-based studies where the actual causal pathways and mechanisms can be better elucidated.
Healio: Why are consumer-facing retailers using this paper at all? Is there no receipt paper available without BPS or BPA chemicals?
Miller: That’s part of the reason that we’ve chosen to do a study like this twice in the last 5 years — there are drop-in substitutes for thermal papers available that are usable in the same printers. You don’t have to change anything except buy different paper, and that would be the alternative, non-bisphenol thermal paper coatings.
My understanding from what I’ve read is that thermal paper was adopted several decades ago, because it prints fast. The printing is long lasting, and apparently, it was convenient for a lot of retailers and took over the whole marketplace. Almost everybody uses thermal paper printing as opposed to traditional printing that uses ink that comes from the printer.
That said, there are a few isolated businesses that use non-thermal paper. They use regular paper. We haven’t looked into it, but they’re apparently using some more traditional or older printing technology to print receipts. So, it’s not essential for anyone to have thermal printers and thermal paper, but it must have a lot of advantages for businesses or it wouldn’t be so widespread.
We’re not expecting companies to totally change out all of their printers. We think the realistic solution is, No. 1, focus on reducing printing. Offer digital receipts or offer a no receipt option. Don’t print receipts by default. A lot of people don’t want them. If they want one, fine, print it. Digital options are becoming more popular, and that should be the priority. After that, choose a non-bisphenol option for the printed ones.
Healio: What research is needed moving forward?
Miller: An organization that we partnered with to release this current report, Green America, has done a lot of work in this area. They have a report called “Skip the Slip” from the last couple of years. They’ve already done a lot of work to investigate the options for businesses. As for the systems available for digital receipts, Green America has done some work in learning more about those options to help businesses that ask “how do we do this” and “how do we change our computer software so that it prompts the cashier to ask if they want a receipt.” Green America worked with CVS, as a major example, to help them transition to a different system where they do things like offering a non-printing option. They shortened the length of their receipts, which were famous for being super long, and also switched from BPS, which they were previously using. Our study was able to confirm some promises made by various companies that had said they were getting out of bisphenols.
In terms of other research, the alternative chemicals that are replacing bisphenol receipts need to be subject to a little more scrutiny. I don’t want to get bogged down in that because there are other solutions, like not printing so many receipts, but we do want to avoid regrettable substitution. We suggested in our report that manufacturers of thermal paper and suppliers of thermal paper do a chemical hazard assessment on alternative chemicals if they haven’t already been done. And we’ve listed a couple of specific options for those chemical hazard assessments. Those are very standardized systems offered by companies that specialize in that.
Healio: What else is your research group working on?
Miller: We work on many things at once, all related to a cleaner economy and environment. Currently, we have several projects related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are a huge issue across the world now but also a very big issue in Michigan with a lot of contaminated sites. We’re doing some research on environmental samples like rainwater, and we recently published a report about partnering with people who fish for food in our area to study. We have an ongoing air pollution project in Detroit and the metro Detroit area with a network of pollution monitors and many community partners motivated by the continuing poor air quality in many parts of Detroit that are associated with high rates of asthma and other health issues. And we’re working with a number of nonprofit partners on strategies to reduce plastic pollution and using some of our expertise that includes highlighting toxic hazards within the supply chains.
For more information:
Gillian Z. Miller, PhD, can be reached at gillian@ecocenter.org.
References:
- Ecology Center. Receipt Deceit: Toxic Chemicals in Receipt Paper. www.ecocenter.org/our-work/healthy-stuff-lab/reports/receipt-deceit-toxic-chemicals-receipt-paper. Published March 23, 2023. Accessed March 28, 2023.
- Green America. Skip The Slip: The Big Impacts of Paper Receipts. https://reports.greenamerica.org/skip-the-slip. Published May 2018. Accessed March 28, 2023.
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