Doctor studying toxic chemicals explains why he avoids receipts

The plastics and chemicals they carry are everywhere, from our air, water and blood to the products we use every day.

Researchers like Dr. Leonardo Trasande know the unexpected places where these chemicals sneak in our lives, such as the receipts you get in grocery stores, service stations, restaurants and clothing.

“We do not consider thermal receipts as plastic, but this brilliant coating is a polymer above,” TRASANDE, professor of pediatrics and environmental health at Nyu Langone told Nyu.

The main trasand complaint on receipts is what this plastic polymer puts in human skin.

Where there is plastic, he added: “worrying chemicals arise for the journey.”

When it is an option to receive your receipt by email or SMS, TRASANDE is for this.

Toxic chemicals on store receipts

The receipts are generally made of thermal paper, which is designed to print using heat sensitive inks. This allows inexpensive and easy impression on site in restaurants and businesses.

The problem is that this thermal paper generally contains bisphenols, a class of chemicals used to make plastics.

The most famous bisphenol, called BPA, has been linked to heart disease, a decrease in fertility, breast and prostate cancers and, in children, asthma and neurodevelopmental problems. BPA has been eliminated from American products over the past decade, including receipts.

However, studies have shown that many reception manufacturers have replaced BPA with its BPS cousin, which is prohibited in Europe for use in food containers, considered as a reproductive toxin by the state of California and has been associated with breast cancer.

If you touch a receipt covered with BPS, the toxic chemical can quickly enter your body by absorbing through your skin, according to recent research.

This year, the non -profit surveillance center for receipts tested in environmental health of 32 large retailers and found that touching one for 10 seconds would exhibit someone with enough BPs to legally need a warning in California. Under proposal 65 of the State, companies must provide warnings concerning important exposure to chemicals that cause cancer or reproductive damage. The CEH delivered a legal opinion to these 32 retailers in April.

“The chemicals used in plastic materials should be correctly checked for safety,” said Trasande. “As the chemicals are identified to be toxic to human health, we have safer alternatives that should be taken into account.”

He called the electronic receipts “an important step forward”.

Microplastic in receipts

Underlying bisphenols, of course, is plastic. Although Trasande said that there are much more definitive research on the health effects of many chemicals in plastics, emerging science on the proliferation of plastics themselves throughout the human body is not comforting.

The plastic items that surround us all in our homes, our workplaces, our schools and even the outdoors lose tiny particles called microplastics – or, when they obtain really tiny nanoplastics.

These tiny plastics accumulate in our body. They were found in almost all the tissues of the human body that checked, from the brain to the mucosa of the arteries. Their health impacts are not yet clear, but they have been linked to chronic inflammation, lung and colon cancers, reproductive health problems and risk of heart attack and stroke.

“There are limits to what I can control,” said Trasande. “At the same time, there are so many measures that we can take to reduce our exposure to worrying chemicals and in particular micro and nanoplastics.”

The drop in paper receipts is one of them. Overall, however, TRASANDE said that the world had to reduce its plastic production.

If business continues as usual, plastic production should triple by 2060, according to the United Nations Environment program.

TRASANDE said that a global plastic treaty would help. According to Reuters, the United Nations should resume negotiations for such a treaty in August.