Key Takeaways
• Washington state has capped BPA in receipt paper and banned it from canned food linings, joining other states in passing BPA legislation and prompting retailers to adjust practices beyond Washington to stay compliant.
• While BPA use is declining, activists and researchers warn that replacement chemicals may also pose health risks, underscoring the need for transparency and rigorous testing to avoid repeating the same problems.
In the continued push against BPA usage on printed items like receipts and labels, Washington has officially prohibited the use of BPA on receipt paper and inside the lining of canned food.
Effective this month, the legislation enacted by Washington’s Department of Ecology rules that “paper receipts can contain no more than 200 parts per million of bisphenol.”
Washington had previously banned BPA from sports bottles in 2012 and now joins states like Connecticut and Illinois, which have both enacted legislation to restrict the usage of BPA on printed products like receipts. Illinois’ legislation, enacted in 2020, prohibited the manufacture, distribution and use of thermal paper with BPA-based coating.
New York has introduced legislation that would place warning labels on products that contain BPA, and New Jersey has introduced legislation to prohibit the use of paper receipts that contain BPA or BPS.
Activists hope that this legislation will spark a trend nationwide as the understanding of potential health effects of BPA, and continued research into alternatives, continue.
“This is making a difference not just in Washington state, but across the country,” Toxic-Free Future spokesperson Cheri Peele told the Spokane Spokesman-Review, “because retailers are changing what they are doing everywhere to be in compliance here – making things safe for consumers across the country.”
While some retailers have voluntarily removed BPA from their receipts, activists like Peele are concerned that there’s still a lack of transparency over what the alternatives are, potentially leading down the same road.
“Retailers won’t tell us what’s in the replacement,” she told The Spokesman-Review. “We need to make sure they move to something that is actually safer and avoid a ‘Whac-A-Mole’ problem.”
That very issue was at the heart of a new study from McGill University in Montreal, where researchers found that alternatives commonly used on adhesive food labels could seep into the food and potentially damage ovarian cells.
Scientists across the globe have been working on safer, environmental alternatives. But as the continued push against BPA creates a steady stream of new alternatives, the science and product safety communities will need to be rigorous in their testing to ensure that any alternative isn’t just more of the same.
