BPA is Invading Your Wallet!

Worried about BPA?  Food containers aren't the only source of exposure to the chemical in our everyday lives.  “On The Money: BPA on Dollar Bills and Receipts” researched by the Washington Toxics Coalition and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, set out to investigate the extent to which thermal receipt paper containing bisphenol A (BPA) has permeated the market, and whether this hormone-disrupting chemical is escaping onto the money that lies close to these receipts in people’s wallets.   

Researchers found that half of the thermal paper receipts tested had large quantities of unbound BPA; 95% of the dollar bills tested positive for lower amounts.  Unlike BPA in baby bottles and other products, BPA on thermal paper isn’t chemically bound in any way: it’s a powdery film on the surface of receipts.  Data from this report indicate that this highly toxic chemical does rather easily transfer to our skin and likely to other items that it rubs against.  In tests mimicking typical handling of receipts, BPA transferred from receipts to fingers.  Just ten seconds of holding a receipt transferred up to 2.5 micrograms. Researchers transferred much higher amounts, about 15 times as much, by rubbing receipts.  

“Our findings demonstrate that BPA cannot be avoided, even by the most conscious consumer,” said Erika Schreder, Staff Scientist at the Washington Toxics Coalition and lead author of the report.  “This unregulated use of large amounts of BPA is having unintended consequences, including exposure to people when we touch receipts.”  

Present in 93% of all Americans, scientists studying BPA have hypothesized the major route of human exposure is through food, as BPA is used as a liner in nearly all canned food and beverages. This study suggests that skin absorption from thermal paper receipts with unbound BPA may lead to exposure at levels equivalent to exposure from food sources.  

“BPA on receipts, dollar bills, and in many other products, is a direct result of the absurdly lax controls on chemicals in the United States,” said Andy Igrejas, Director of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition.  “The 112th Congress should make reform of the failed 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act a top legislative priority to protect American families for generations to come.” 

Check out our list of tips to minimize BPA exposure here.

To read the executive summary click here, or to read the full report click here.