Red Fibers Foretell BPA-Free Receipts

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Janelle Sorensen

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Back in November of 2008, we were unnerved to learn that cash register receipts were an unexpected source of BPA. And our concern peaked earlier this year when it became clear that BPA easily passed through skin and receipts were potentially a significant source of exposure.

Just as consumer awareness (and preference for safer alternatives) sparked a massive shift away from using BPA to manufacture baby bottles, and a recent shift away from using BPA to line aluminum cans – our latest influence may be in our ability to identify safer receipts.

Ariel Schwartz says on Fast Company:

Appleton, the largest manufacturer of thermal paper and the only producer of BPA-free thermal receipt paper in the U.S, announced this week that it has added small red fibers to its paper so that shoppers and cashiers can immediately see when their receipts are BPA-free.

The red rayon fibers, which will be in approximately 75 percent of the thermal receipt paper that Appleton ships by the end of November, will be found on the back. "We hope that being able to see the red fibers in our receipt paper will give holiday shoppers peace of mind about the safety of those receipts," Kent Willetts, Appleton’s vice president of strategic development said in a statement.

What can you do?

Look for the red fibers. If you don’t see them, ask for Appleton BPA-Free receipts.

Until BPA is banned in all cash register receipts, the EWG recommends the following:

Don’t let children or infants handle receipts.
Avoid paper receipts entirely when electronic or email receipts are available.
If you save receipts, save them in a separate envelope.
After handling receipts, wash your hands thoroughly before preparing or eating food.
Don’t use alcohol-based hand sanitizers after handling receipts; they can increase absorption of BPA through the skin.
Don’t recycle receipts or other thermal paper; BPA residues can contaminate recycled paper.

Editor's Note: Shortly after posting this blog, additional information about BPA-free receipts came to light:
"Science News and other outlets reporting on BPA-free receipts identify for the first time a substitute chemical being used by one of the largest manufacturers of thermal paper. It has been referred to incorrectly in blogs as "bisphenol sulfonate" or "diphenyl sulfone," but it is actually a chemical known as bisphenol S (Update, 11/15/10: 4,4'-sulfonylbisphenol). As the name indicates, it is structurally very similar to bisphenol A (BPA). And although it has not been studied as much as BPA, preliminary studies show that it shares hormone-mimicking properties as well.

In 2005, a group of Japanese scientists compared BPA and 19 other related compounds for their ability to mimic the female hormone estrogen. They tested the effects on human cells and found that bisphenol S was slightly less potent than BPA, but not by much: bisphenol S was active at 1.1 micromolar concentration, BPA at 0.63 micromolar. One micromolar is roughly equivalent to a packet of sugar in 3,000 gallons of water.

Other researchers have found that bisphenol S is much less biodegradable than BPA. In their study of eight bisphenol compounds, bisphenol S was the most persistent.

While much more is known about the effects of BPA – particularly at ultra-low doses – the existing data on bisphenol S suggests the substitution should be made with caution. Hormone-mimicking behavior and environmental persistence are intrinsic hazards that should be avoided."

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image courtesy of Appleton / CC BY-SA 2.0