California, the core consumer market in the United States, has further upgraded its environmental supervision standards for office thermal paper in early 2026. The official update of California Proposition 65 officially includes BPS (Bisphenol S) in the list of harmful chemical substances that are strictly restricted. This new regulation marks that the United States has completely ended the alternative loophole of "replacing BPA with BPS" in the thermal paper industry, and all bisphenol-based chemical substitutes are included in the strict market supervision scope.
In accordance with the new regulatory requirements, all local retail supermarkets, catering stores, bank financial institutions, enterprise office buildings, and public service offices in California are completely prohibited from purchasing and using any thermal paper products containing BPS. The local market supervision department has launched a special sampling inspection action for office and commercial thermal paper products. For merchants and enterprises that use non-compliant BPS-containing thermal paper, they will face penalties such as market rectification, fine warnings, and product confiscation. In order to avoid compliance risks and market penalties, local office stationery distributors, supermarket supply chain suppliers, and office consumable retailers have comprehensively cleared all BPS-containing thermal paper inventory in the first quarter of 2026, and completely stopped the sales and supply of traditional BPS-substituted thermal paper products.
The upgrade of California’s regulations has a typical demonstration and leading effect on the entire North American market. As the most stringent environmental supervision state in the United States, California’s product safety standards are often referenced and followed by other states. Industry experts predict that more states in the US will successively launch BPS restriction policies in 2026 and 2027, and the full ban on all bisphenol substances in thermal paper will become a national unified standard in the United States. For global office paper exporters, the era of low-cost alternative thermal paper with BPS is completely over. Only fully phenol-free, BPA-free and BPS-free environmentally friendly thermal paper products can meet the long-term compliance requirements of the North American and European markets. This policy upgrade further raises the market entry threshold for thermal paper, accelerates the elimination of backward low-end products in the industry, and promotes the high-quality and environmentally friendly upgrading of the global office thermal paper industry.