ORLANDO, Fla. — A California-based non-profit is taking action against dozens of major retailers, saying the paper receipts the companies hand to customers every day have high levels of toxic chemicals.
9 Investigates first showed you this problem back in 2023 when we tested hundreds of receipts from here in Central Florida and across the country.
So, what’s toxic about some receipts? Most are printed using thermal paper.
This paper uses heat, not ink to print. For the print to show, it typically requires a “chemical developing agent”.
For years, the main chemical companies used was BPA. But many companies are now using a related chemical, Bisphenol S or BPS.
“It’s removing one toxic chemical and then replacing it with another regrettable substitution. It’s like a toxic shell game of whack-a-mole,” Kizzy Charles-Guzman, CEO of the Center for Environmental Health (CEH).
The nonprofit sent out violation warnings to 50 major retailers this year, including Walmart, McDonalds, Dollar General, the Cheesecake Factory, GAP, and Victoria’s Secret.
CEH said they found BPS on their receipts exceeding California’s limit on the chemical.
In 2023, California added BPS to the list of chemicals the state places limits on, saying it “causes reproductive toxicity.”
“BPS, just like BPA, is a hormone disrupting chemical. It mimics estrogen, so it disrupts the normal functioning of the human body. It disrupts your metabolism, your growth and development, and reproduction,” Charles-Guzman said.
Research from several studies show if you hold a receipt containing BPS for just 10 seconds, it can be absorbed into your skin and your bloodstream.
Our Cox Media Group partners collected more than 240 receipts from more than 150 businesses across eight states, sending them here to the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan to be tested.
80 percent came back positive for BPS.
The state of California gave companies a grace period up until December 2024 to either replace BPS with another product or place a label on receipts that look like this.
But Charles-Guzman says the 50 major retailers the CEH put on notice did neither.
She says that’s why they’re threatening a citizen enforcement lawsuit if the companies don’t pay a civil penalty and provide “clear and reasonable warnings” of BPS.
“Our goal is not for them to slap a label on it and that says, ‘this product is known in the state of California to cause cancer’. I don’t care about the label. We want them to remove the chemical from the supply chain. So that means reformulating the product,” Charles-Guzman said.
She says the hope is that the CEH’s threatened action against the companies in California will create a domino effect, pushing retailers to change the products they use for receipts nationwide.
“Very few times a company wants to sell a product only in the boundaries of the state of California and a different product in Texas and a difference product in New York, right? So it’s two-pronged,” Charles-Guzman said.
Charles-Guzman says there’s other products these companies can use; however, the receipts would be less bright.
“I would take a less bright receipt in exchange for not getting this nasty chemical in my bloodstream that then affects my health and that i can pass on to my kids,” Charles-Guzman said.
We reached out to all companies mentioned in this story.
We have not heard back. CEH says it is in communication with several, but they haven’t reached any final resolution.
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