Headlines like “BPA Replacement Also Alters Hormones” started emerging in scientific mags several years ago, but by all indications, most companies were looking the other way. The problem is that most large retailers in North America adopted alternatives made with BPA’s sister chemical, BPS. By that point, a whole slew of national retailers, like Costco, opted to move away from the troubled hormone disruptor. In 2016, California mandated that any stores distributing BPA-laced products post signs warning customers that BPA is a known female reproductive toxin. But after Health Canada declared BPA officially toxic in 2010 (banning it from baby bottles but not tin can linings or receipts), forward-thinking retailers big and small, including Metro and the Big Carrot Community Market, quickly sought out BPA-free alternatives.
It all adds up to bad news for major Canadian retailers.īPA was long the coating of choice for thermal receipts (the shiny kind that fade over time). The results of an experiment released last week by Environmental Defence found that handling thermal receipts for around 15 minutes (the estimated time a cashier comes in contact with receipts over an eight-hour shift) caused significant spikes in urine levels of hormone-disrupting Bisphenol A (BPA), as well as BPA’s controversial replacement chemical, Bisphenol S (BPS). Turns out common thermal receipts also deliver a dose of estrogen-mimicking chemicals, which is thrusting the spotlight on the workers who handle them and the retailers that dole them out. Wedged into wallets, they chronicle the highs and lows of our retail therapy, our mid-afternoon mocha binges and the daily tab for being human in a consumer economy. We come in contact with them every day of our lives.
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