I've Heard Receipts Are Toxic. Is It Safe to Touch Them?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/well/health-effects-paper-receipts.html

by donohoe • 1 year ago

11 16 1 year ago

nytimes.com

LorenDB• 1 year ago

https://archive.ph/FaX6r

incomingpain• 1 year ago

Most major U.S. retailers began replacing BPA with BPS about a decade ago.

So receipts were bad to touch a decade ago, causing the switch and the replacement is probably just as bad.

VladVladikoff2• 1 year ago

You can say this about lots of things. Plastic bottles, tin cans of food, etc, etc.

on_the_train• 1 year ago

As far as I understand it, other plastics have the same effect. It just takes time until the research is as bulletproof. Hence the companies just between mostly identical compounds while the underlying issue stays the same.

Simulacra• 1 year ago

Tangentially related: I was friends with a lady who was lobbying congress to get ridnof thermal receipt paper. Over time, thermal receipts fadr, and after a year you really no longer have the receipt because it's mostly faded. This makes it almost a disappearing warranty.

I scan my receipts for major purchases, but I think she had a point.

larrled• 1 year ago

The trend I’ve noticed is towards emailed receipts which are not very consumer friendly. It seems like a better option is just taking a snapshot of the receipt on your cell phone. I’d appreciate having that option. A retailer could show the receipt on a tablet and I could take a quick snapshot. Win-win.

VladVladikoff2• 1 year ago

But don’t use hand sanitizer, Dr. Martin said — “this will only enhance the absorption of BPA or BPS across the skin.”

There is a non zero chance some cashier did this non stop during the pandemic. I hope they don’t read this article it will make them very stressed.

xattt• 1 year ago

Alcohol melts the thermo-sensitive layer and makes a receipt illegible.

bhouston2• 1 year ago

I really don't understand why VISA / Mastercard / American Express / Debit Cards do not have a email associated with them that will automatically get sent receipts when you use those cards - or have them show up in the bank that issued the card.

It would be amazing and seems like a straight forward extension of the charge card industry. Of course end user machines will have to be updated, but that can happen over a period of years, but it is a straight forward extension.

And the email / identity shouldn't be disclosed to the sellers, instead the receipts should be sent to charge card's infrastructure along with the charge/payment. And then from there it is distributed to the users.

Maybe Apple and Google and Samsung could somehow extend their Apple Pay / Google Pay / Samsung Pay APIs to enable receipts automatically and start to push for that. If Apple advertised it in their keynote, and say StarBucks and Home Depot and Walmart supported it, we would soon have this everywhere.

jzwinck• 1 year ago

I came here to write something very similar. Visa and their competitors all have the ability to transport data about the payment. Most receipts are a fairly small raster image which could be sent as an extension. Visa could also offer a structured text receipt data format but the image may actually be safer to avoid a billion questions about how to represent unusual situations around surcharges, optional extras, custom discounts, split checks etc.

It would be important for the receipt to include the original broken-out list of items purchased, and not just the "credit card receipt" with the total paid. People need detailed receipts for returns and business expenses.

bitshiftfaced• 1 year ago

In many cases, the POS software would have to go out of its way to share the itemized receipt details with the credit card processor. There's probably an incentive to get paid for that data elsewhere that overshadows the benefit to the user.

cph123• 1 year ago

In the UK we had something similar called Flux. I don't think it got widely adopted.

Discussed previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179645

bhouston2• 1 year ago

It needs to be pushed by Apple or Google and then the other players in this space will get FOMO.

msgodel• 1 year ago

A lot of retailers just ask you for an email/phone number once and then associate that with your card number to send you the receipt automatically.

That seems like a decent "good enough" solution.

foxyv• 1 year ago

This makes Walmart pay really attractive. I get the receipt as part of the pay system.

I've Heard Receipts Are Toxic. Is It Safe to Touch Them?

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