Our office just got its first fruit shipment, which included an apology for the under-ripe bananas and the suggestion to put them in a brown paper bag along with an apple to speed up the ripening. Does doing this harm the apple?
I'm aware of Why does a brown paper bag speed ripening?, which talks about why this works, but the focus there is on what's happening to the ripening fruit, not what happens to the catalyst. We want to know if using one of the high-quality apples they sent us would lead to regrets.
By browsing this site I've learned that there are other ways to ripen them, including apparently just putting them in the bag without the apple. The instructions from the vendor made me curious about the apple, though, so that's the focus of this question.
(If you make alternate suggestions, please bear in mind that we're in an office with limited kitchen facilities.)