This post is sponsored by the Mamavation community but all opinions are 100% my own (as if you ever doubted).

Fun fact about me: I didn’t declare my major in college until either the end of my sophomore year or beginning of my junior year. As in, the last possible moment. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until I went to see Erin Brockovich with my mom that I knew…I wanted to be an environmental crusader. I wanted to save the earth from all of the crap we humans were doing to it. The closest thing to that at the University Of Arkansas was a BS in Earth Science, and that’s what I got.

Okay, so I didn’t actually become an environmental superhero. I mean, there’s still time, I suppose. But, I’ve always tried to do my part to lessen my (and my family’s) carbon footprint, and in recent years, tried to learn more about and decrease our dependence on chemicals. For instance, I’ve stopped buying “traditional” sunscreens. Now, if we’re going out during the day when sun exposure is the highest, I only use sunscreens on the “safe” list from EWG. I stopped buying drink cups and bottles with BPA in them (didn’t we all?), and I have drastically decreased the use of chemical cleaners in my home.

So when I learned about a recent study that found that nasty, potentially disease-causing BPA in grocery store cash register receipts, it made me think. I mean, where else is it hiding? And what can we do about it, to keep our families safe? According to the Washington Post, the study showed that BPA was increasingly present in the urine of people who had handled the receipts containing it for two hours. I used to work cash registers at several different stores. Does that mean that it could have been leaching into my body all day long, and is it still there? Did I pass it on to my kids?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I know that I’m not going to just sit back and let it happen. I’m going to do my own research, learn more about it (just like I did with the sunscreen and cleaners) and make my own proactive decisions to protect myself and my kids.

What do you think of this study? Does it make you think twice about what you do with those receipts?