On Feb 19, 2018, at 11:17 AM, Zoe Anna wrote:
Hello,We are part of South Eugene High School’s Earth Guardians 350 club. EG350 works to combat climate change in our community and around the world through civics, education, and activism.
One of the issues that has been drawn to our attention is the immense amount of waste produced by stores around the world with the production of receipts – even when the customer does not want one.Over 250 million gallons of oil, 10 million trees and 1 billion gallons of water are consumed each year in the creation of receipts for the United States alone, generating 1.5 billion pounds of waste. In addition, receipts are non-recyclable.Many companies and stores are making the transition to paperless receipts, and we’d like to encourage you to do the same. Over time, the cost of technology (Like iPads and software such as Square) that produces paperless receipts is far cheaper than the cost of paper receipts.We would love to talk with a manager or employee about this issue further and discuss options to make the change to paperless receipts.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration,Zoe PringleEarth Guardians 350 South Eugene High School
Dear Zoe and Serena,
Hi, funny you should email us about this right now.
We have had the capacity to email receipts for some time, but have not yet made most of our customers aware of it. We are going to make signs this week to display at the cash registers, alerting customers that they can opt-in to eReceipts. Our point-of-sale system cannot currently link customers via their credit or debit cards, but we can issue them a customer card, which then opts them in to our eReceipt system.
As well, we have for many years already set the default for our point of sale system to NOT print a receipt unless the customer specifically wants one. That avoids a lot of waste right there, as most of us don’t need our receipts, especially for food purchases.
Furthermore, we have worked for many years to find a replacement for the TOXIC phenol based thermal receipts that are both unhealthy to handle, and a endocrine disrupting contaminant in the paper recycling stream. Our receipt paper uses Vitamin C as a developer, and IS completely recyclable, unlike most thermal paper.
Thanks for working on this, and feel free to use us as an example of a store that is stepping up to the challenge. Maybe we can help get a few more retailers thinking about solutions to these problems,
David ResSeguie
Food Information and Information Services Manager
