A series of settlements with some of the nation’s largest receipt paper companies may pave the way for greater health and safety in the retail sector. The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) has announced new legally binding settlements with 163 of the largest retailers, manufacturers, and distributors of receipt paper in the United States for exposing consumers and workers to Bisphenol S (BPS). These 163 companies make up 7% of the United States’ retail market and signal a shift towards health and environmental safety in every industry that hands out paper receipts to customers. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman commended the group on “the complexity of the scientific and legal issues involved, and the excellent results obtained.”
Nearly two thirds of the receipt paper CEH tested in 2025 from hundreds of retailers contained BPS in excess of the legal limits set by California’s Proposition 65. BPS is a hormone-disrupting chemical that mimics estrogen and can affect the normal functioning of the body, impacting metabolism, growth, development, and reproduction. The new settlements require the same retailers who distributed these thermal receipts to offer only receipts that are BPS-free or completely free of replacement phenols moving forward, effectively ending an era of substituting one harmful bisphenol in receipts for another.
CEH’s litigation also legally committed Domtar — the sole producer of thermal paper to the United States — to exclusively offer phenol additive-free receipt paper in California. This is a significant win given Domtar’s dominance in the receipt paper market, as it provides retailers with a supplier offering an option that does not contain BPS or any of the other regrettable substitutes that would cause comparable harms to public health and the environment.
Eliminating receipts with BPS will benefit more than just consumers. Retail workers who handle dozens of receipts as a regular part of their jobs every day are at an even higher risk of being exposed to unsafe levels of BPS than the general population.
BPS-laden receipts also contaminate recycling streams. According to Shakoora Azimi-Gaylon, Senior Director of the Toxic Exposures and Pollution Prevention Program at CEH, “Historically, receipts have been made from thermal paper which shouldn’t be recycled because they contain bisphenols, like BPA and BPS, that can contaminate the recycling stream and pose health and environmental risks.” By moving away from these chemicals altogether, CEH’s agreements help to protect not only shoppers and workers who handle receipts every day, but also the recycling system more broadly.
These groundbreaking settlements commit 163 of the largest retailers and suppliers in the United States to only use receipt paper that is BPS-free or completely phenol additive-free. Committing to only use phenol additive-free receipt paper helps to prevent a cycle of “regrettable substitution,” in which one chemical is replaced by another with similar toxicity, to ensure these 163 companies switch to a receipt that is genuinely safer for consumers, workers, and the environment.
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