eco tip Skip the Slip Digital Receipts Gain Momentum
Compared to newspapers, magazines and junk mail, retail sales receipts may seem incon- sequential in their use of trees and their footprint on the environment. Yet, getting and handling that tabulation of a
sale is a health hazard that contributes to landfills. Certainly, some receipts are required for tax records and product returns, but the vast majority serve no future purpose; there’s also a better and safer option than paper.
Treehugger.com reports the annual waste from receipts in the U.S. totals 686 million pounds, and that skipping receipts would save 12 billion pounds of car- bon dioxide, the equivalent of 1 million cars on the road. The problem is getting worse as many retail outlets in- clude special offers and other promotional information on receipts, making them longer and the corresponding amount of paper used greater.
The Ecology Center, an educational nonprofit located in San Juan Capistrano, California, esti- mates that 93 percent of paper receipts are coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or Bisphenol-S (BPS), endocrine disrupters that are used as color devel- opers to help make the receipts more legible. How- ever, the presence of either makes them ineligible for recycling.
According to Green America (
GreenAmerica.org),
BPA that can be “absorbed into our bodies through our hands in mere seconds,” can impact fetal develop- ment and “is linked to reproductive impairment, Type 2 diabetes, thyroid conditions and other health con- cerns.” Employees that regularly handle receipts have 30 percent more BPA or BPS in their bodies. In January, California Assembly member Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation (AB 161) nicknamed “skip the slip”, which would require retail- ers to offer digital receipts to customers. If it passes, it will be the first such law in the country.
14 Greater Oklahoma/OKC Edition
NaturalAwakeningsOKC.com
Andrey_Popov/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
