There is a chemical that is in a lot of the things we use daily that is another estrogen mimicker and has connections to various cancers. The chemical I'm talking about it BPA... The initials are short for bisphenol-A. It is used as a softener to make plastic pliable or harden it (as in the baby bottles that the Canadian Govt' banned from the country in 2006 because of BPAs) and up till now, I was aware that it was in Crocs, Holey Soles shoes, water bottles, supermarket shopping bags and sex toys to name a vast spectrum of places we can find it.
What I didn't know up until recently is that it is also hiding in another place. While there are minute traces of this horrendous substance in these items I listed, it's mind boggling to find out that there is one place where there a thousand times more of the stuff. Heat treated receipts are the culprit. Easily half the receipts you handle are stockpiling a chemical in your body that is quietly undermining your health and you dont even know it.
Cashiers handle them all day. Not only are clerks in stores dealing with the carcinogens contained in the gasses that have inundated the clothes in the ready to wear industry that they must unpack to place on hangers for sale, (a plethora of carcinogenic chemicals that come under the category of 'Mildew retardant' as the huge cargo ships bring the stock from the free trade zones of the far east), but now they must find out that for their minimum wage job that is not even a living wage, they are dealing with an even more intrusive element that has every indication it will be responsible for the shortening of those very lives they are struggling to maintain.
These days, I am working to help a friend at tax time and am learning the ropes about bookkeeping. All day long as I work for this friend, I handle receipts. I realize what dire dangers I am doing to myself yet, instead of finding rubber/latex gloves to protect myself, I act as if I can't see it, it must not be there.
This is a discovery so heinous that pregnant women are now being warned that handling ONE receipt puts her foetus at risk and to wash her hands as well as keep her receipts encased in a ziplock (plastic!) bag.
I am including a few links at the end of this warning so that if I don't have you convinced, perhaps authors with the correct credentials will succeed where I've failed.
I'm not trying to be Chicken Little, all 'sky is falling!' about things. I believe that knowledge is power and with understanding comes the responsibility to share the information with others. I don't live in fear of the HFCS in food today, I avoid it when at all possible. I won't live in fear of this either, but I WILL become less stupid about my exposure to it.
BPAs are in the plastic tupperware that we put our hot food in. This causes the plastic to degrade, the heat creates an oil to extrude from the plastic over time and that oil is laden with BPAs. If you nuke your food in plastic, you are ingesting BPA's.
I remember my time in university, in the cafeteria, lined up waiting for my food, looking through the pass window into the kitchen where students prepare food and seeing them use yogurt containers for containing hot butter. Back then, I had to wonder where people got so lackadaisical about accepting plastic as being harmless when in reality, it is far from it.
In one article, John Warner, a prof teaching green chemistry, explains.
'When people talk about polycarbonate bottles, they talk about nanogram quantities of BPA [leaching out],” Warner observes. “The average cash register receipt that's out there and uses the BPA technology will have 60 to 100 milligrams of free BPA.” By free, he explains, it’s not bound into a polymer, like the BPA in polycarbonates. It’s just the individual molecules loose and ready for uptake.
As such, he argues, when it comes to BPA in the urban environment, “the biggest exposures, in my opinion, will be these cash register receipts.” Once on the fingers, BPA can be transferred to foods. And keep in mind, he adds, some hormones — like estrogen in certain birth-control formulations — are delivered through the skin by controlled-release patches. So, he argues, estrogen mimics like BPA might similarly enter the skin.
Moreover, there are all kinds of materials(on and) in the skin that might selectively degrade or alter this hormone imposter as it passes through.' (1)
How often have I sat at the desk over the past two weeks and eaten something in the midst of recording the endless stream of receipts? So now, I'm eating BPA as well as getting it into my bloodstream through my fingers. Good to know!
Another article from the CBC News desk claims:
"It's a concern that retail workers who are handling receipts all day long would be exposed to higher amounts.
According to the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S., 93 per cent of Americans over the age of six have BPA in their bodies. People working in the retail sector had 30 per cent more BPA on average than other Americans.
The EWG recommends people minimize the number of thermal receipts they collect at retail outlets ATMs and other machines where possible."(2)
Here is another quote from an article, the link of which I'm posting at the bottom as well.
'Another recent study out of Harvard University found that, out of 389 pregnant women, those with the highest BPA levels in their bodies worked as cashiers. The findings are disturbing, considering that a growing body of evidence suggests that BPA does most of its damage to the reproductive system when babies are exposed in utero.' (3)
'Thermal cash-register receipts are the norm now, and many of them are coated with high levels of BPA. Researchers of this new study, published in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, found BPA transferred from paper the skin after handling a receipt for just a few seconds. And the longer the hands went unwashed afterwards, the more researchers say was absorbed through the skin into the body. (Two hours after handing a receipt, nearly 75 percent of the BPA on the skin was gone, leading researchers to believe it was absorbed.) Interestingly, researchers found that when hands were greasy from body oils or other moisturizers, BPA transferred from receipt to skin was 10 times higher.' (3)
' until manufacturers collectively stop using it in food cans and packaging and stores stop issuing BPA-laced cash-register receipts we'll likely continue to hear about its links to infertility, sperm damage, heart disease, obesity, and other problems.' (3)
Not only do all thermal receipts look alike, there is no way yet to know if the receipt you are holding is or isn't inundated with BPA. So what can you do to limit or avoid your exposure?
I strive to write a solution-based blog, not just problem-oriented. Having said that, here are some steps you can take to avoid handling the little bits of paper spit out by cash registers, and what you can do if you DO have to handle them...
• Avoid toxic receipts like the plague. Complicating matters, an Environmental Working Group study found that when looking at chain stores, there doesn't seem to be an across-the-board BPA-free policy. Chains in one region had receipts that contained BPA, while in another, the same chain's franchises did not. When you order a simple coffee or everyday grocery order, you may want to just say you don't want a receipt. At the gas pump and ATM machine (the receipts could contain BPA), you usually have the option to say no thanks to a receipt. If you need to take a receipt, store it in a folder or envelope, not in your wallet.
• Wash with soap and water. Use regular soap and water (avoid toxic antibacterial soaps containing triclosan) after handling receipts. If you're a cashier, push your manager to convert to paperless receipts, and until then, you may want to wear non-vinyl gloves to protect yourself.
• Pressure your favorite retailers to go with paperless receipts. Although BPA-free receipt paper is available, it costs more. If retailers want to save money, they can forgo paper receipts altogether by choosing an electronic receipts system. Implementing paperless receipts gives companies a legit reason to say they're going green. (3)
Today, I handled receipts for four hours straight, came home, lightly washed my hands and made supper. I have no way of knowing if I contaminated the meal with my laziness. I probably did. After reading all this research on the effects of BPA on our bodies, I feel REALLY grimy. I think I'm going to go have a shower now.
Lastly, do not think that by using alcohol based hand sanitizer, you are eradicating the chemical from your skin. Far from it, hand sanitizer SPEEDS up the absorption.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/07/29/con-bpa-receipts.html#ixzz1DLeUWTah
(1) http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48084/title/Science_%2B_the_Public__Concerned_about_BPA_Check_your_receipts
(2) http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/07/29/con-bpa-receipts.html
(3) http://www.rodale.com/bpa-receipts
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