Just learned that cash register receipts are FULL of BPA

[aero17]

@vypr Yeah I was in a routine of handing my baby the receipt after checkout because he loves the crinkles and it makes him happy while I get us out of the store and load the car. Recently stopped when I learned about BPAs.

 

[emmacat]

@vypr Same!! I gave my 14m old my ikea receipt yesterday to buy me the extra 10 minutes I needed to load the car. He 100% put it in his mouth. Oops

 

[al8115]

@valarielynn They're crinkly. My daughter loved crinkly.

Not something I would give her to play with for the other reasons you listed, but grandpa clearly didn't have the same reservations.

 

[gizmorazaar]

@danmat777 I’m very much the type to not worry over every little thing. I’m not “granola”, and I don’t worry about environmental exposures much. I consider most such concerns overblown.

This one is legit. I never accept receipts when offered the option, and haven’t for years. I don’t exactly stress when one is handed to me - I need to show it to leave Costco after all - but it gets disposed of asap.

 

[cindylr]

@danmat777 Yes/no. If you handle receipts regularly then it’s best to wear gloves impermeable to BPA. If you’re pregnant or have a hormone related disorder, then avoid handling receipts.

If you’re anyone else that grabs a receipt infrequently, probably not worth worrying about. But it certainly helps to reduce exposure by rejecting receipts you don’t need.

 

[bht]

@al8115 My advice would be to not eat the receipt.

 

[fender57]

@bht You don't need to eat it. It can absorb through your skin or transfer to your food after.

 

[bht]

@fender57 Since this is a science sub. Here’s a blog post that contains two linked studies on the subject.

https://www.factsaboutbpa.org/blog/should-you-be-concerned-about-bpa-and-paper-receipts/

Ultimately I’d consider it very low risk compared to other potential risks to your child (mainly cars and guns). But yeah if you just want to be mildly granola you can ask them to not give you the receipt. I mean who even itemizes anymore with SALT deduction cap.

 

[al8115]

@bht From the article I linked:

When BPA enters the body via the oral route, it is absorbed into the mesenteric blood vessels, transported to the liver, and rapidly metabolized in a process referred to as ‘first pass metabolism’ [31]. Such processes mean that the majority of BPA that circulates in the bloodstream following oral exposure is in the conjugated form (e.g., BPA-glucuronide, BPA-sulfate) although some unconjugated BPA does reach circulation [29, 32, 33]. In contrast, when BPA enters the body via alternative routes (e.g., dermal or inhalation), it circumvents first-pass metabolism, allowing significantly more unconjugated BPA to circulate in the bloodstream [29–31]. These toxicokinetic data suggest that the route of exposure can have a large influence on the concentration of BPA that circulates as unconjugated BPA [19, 34]. This is important because, for BPA, only the unconjugated form can bind to estrogen receptor, leading some groups to conclude that only the unconjugated form is biologically active and therefore hazardous [35, 36].

In other words, BPA that is absorbed may be much worse than that which is eaten/drunk.

Edit to add: Your blog post was literally written by the BPA industry. Of course they found there to be little harm! From the "About Us" on that page:

The Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group represents the leading global manufacturers of bisphenol A (BPA) and polycarbonate plastic. For many years the group has sponsored scientific research to understand whether BPA has the potential to cause health or environmental effects and to support scientifically sound policy.

 

[bht]

@al8115 Ok gotcha - well good thing regardless the threat, at least from the data we have available right now, seems pretty low.

As a parent you can only hold so many anxieties and fears at once when raising your kids. If it’s not the killer bees, it’s now the dang receipts haha

I think that what helps me keep calm is looking at the data and being really good at mitigating the high threat risks to my kids. For me it’s really cars that I’m most scared of. So I advocate for traffic calming infrastructure in my community. Have my kids wear high viz clothing when appropriate and drive like the sexiest grandma you’ve ever seen in my minivan as my children’s father.

 

[al8115]

@bht Very true. I'm not going to ban receipts from my home, but I'm definitely not going to let the kids play with them anymore. And carseat safety is something I do NOT mess around with (I also drive like a grandma lol!). I shared the article so others can make informed decisions for their families too, since I had no idea about this source of exposure!

 

[bucj]

@al8115 Ugh pretty sure there's bpa in my phone case too but it's hard to find cases that explicitly state bpa free. I wonder if it absorbs as much as the amount on receipt paper does

 

[al8115]

@bucj My understanding is that receipt paper is particularly egregious in terms of shedding BPA (think about how your fingers sometimes feel slimy and/or turn black if you've been handling lots of receipts). So I doubt that hard plastic items shed as much, if any BPA through normal contact.

But in this world, who knows.

 

[fender57]

@bht I didn't say anything about the relative long-term risk, just that you don't need to put it directly in your mouth for there to be a significant increase in blood BPA levels.

I don't think it's been well-studied enough to determine absolute risk to health at this point.

 

[angel_sword]

@al8115 In the EU BPA is banned in thermal paper since January 2020.

 

[cutin]

@angel_sword Huh, is that why they all went blue?

 

[cleophilia3]

@al8115 This was in the most recent Consumer Reports about how to "eat less plastic" so I can imagine it's getting a lot of buzz recently along with the probably realistic concern around plastic gloves used for handling most food.

However, the grocery store receipt sitting in front of me here says "BPA FREE PAPER" along the back of it. I can't help but wonder if perhaps this fear is a bit overblown at this point and that many things have changed since this research was published.

 

[nrg23]

@cleophilia3 BPA free is also meaningless if they moved a carbon and replaced it with BPS or BPF

 

[rom837]

@al8115 The fact that receipts still exist at all for most transactions in the digital age is the most frustrating part of this fact.

We should be able to go to every transaction in our credit card statement and find a full digital receipt.

 

[kimnerdy]

@rom837 I’m guessing it’s a data privacy issue, particularly in EU countries (maybe not so much in the US). I personally would not want CC having itemized data on every single item I purchase.