DID YOU KNOW

Contaminated thermal register receipts are not recyclable.

Thermal register receipts account for the loss of 10 million trees a year. And did you know that most are contaminated with BPA? That’s the same BPA that was found in water bottles that we were all drinking out of. A register receipt is coated with BPA and can easily rub off onto your skin.

The chemicals are not bound to the paper or polymerized so they can easily transfer to anything a receipt touches — your hand, the money in your wallet, or even the groceries in your shopping bag.

BPA and BPS are known hormone disruptors that can affect brain development, heart, lung and prostate health, mammary glands, and reproductive abilities. They can be transferred from fingers to the mouth via food, or absorbed directly through the skin when held. The Environmental Working Group reported that bisphenol-A "transfers from receipts to skin and can penetrate the skin to such a depth that it cannot be washed off." If you have wet or greasy hands, or use hand sanitizer or lotion after handling a receipt, the absorption happens even more rapidly. Who wants a job in retail?

If thermal paper were to be recycled, it would contaminate other products in the recycling stream with BPA or BPS. These products are often turned into items such as facial tissue, paper towels, or shopping bags. And burning them would release BPA and BPS into the atmosphere or soil.

It is now possible to buy thermal paper that does not contain phenol developers (which include BPA and BPS). If a receipt is printed on phenol-free thermal paper, it can be recycled "in the 'mixed office paper' category of local recycling streams."

The best solution is to ask for receipts to be emailed, rather than printed. Not only will you avoid chemical exposure, but you will also decrease demand for a paper product that drives extensive deforestation every year. It's the ultimate zero-waste solution: always refuse before you reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Now let’s talk about BPA and that canned beer or canned tomatoes…