The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is launching an effort to warn people about a little-known source of the chemical bisphenol(BPA): paper receipts.
BPA is toxic to fish, and studies have shown it causes reproductive problems in humans. It is on the MPCA's list of nine priority chemicals that Minnesota must reduce in the environment.
It is used as a chemical developer in most receipts printed in a thermal process on slick paper, said MPCA specialist Madalyn Cioci. Those types of receipts are widely used by businesses.
"Here's something that people handle all the time," Cioci said. "And if there's a good way to limit people's exposure and use and generation, we'd like to go after that."
Cioci is leading a voluntary program urging businesses to email receipts instead of printing them.
She said there are no nontoxic alternatives to BPA, so simply asking businesses to print receipts differently would not work.
"Receipts used to be ink on paper," Cioci said, "but with thermal receipts they go through a heating process, and the BPA is the developer that helps that process happen."
The MPCA program is funded by a $60,000 federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.