Are Paper Receipts the New Plastic Straws?
We all know that printing with paper is damaging to the environment.
Every year UK retailers print an average of 11.2 billion receipts, with a combined weight of over 7,300 tons. This costs over £32 million, and requires over 87,000 trees to be cut down. Considering that 9.9 billion of them are never used and just thrown away, this is incredibly wasteful -especially given that they’re often unable to be recycled, for reasons we’ll come on to later.
Flux, a banking e-receipt company, estimates that 300 billion paper receipts are issued every year worldwide. This amounts to 25 million trees, 22 million barrels of oil and 18 billion litres of water.
This is not the only reason receipts harm our environment.
The vast majority of receipts are printed using a special type of paper called ‘thermal paper’. This durable and slightly shiny looking paper is very cheap and easy to quickly print on using heat, making it very popular. An EU study found that half of retailers still use thermal paper, with the figure at 93% in the US. This is despite its proven detrimental impact to human health and ecosystems.
The reason that thermal paper is so damaging is because it nearly always contains Bisphenol A and/or Bisphenol S (BPA/BPS).
Bisphenol A is a proven endocrine disruptor, with “pronounced effects on the reproductive system, child development, metabolic disorders, obesity, endocrine disorders, and the nervous system; as well as being implicated in causing DNA damage, oxidative stress, and breast cancer”
It also affects growth, reproduction and development of marine life. Although far, far below the lethal dose, when touching a receipt containing BPA/BPS a small amount does get absorbed into the bloodstream — especially concerning for those who work long hours handling receipts.
In fact, the European Union has already banned baby products containing BPA and upheld a decision by the European Chemicals Agency to continue to list BPA as a substance of very high concern. However, many countries still haven’t taken action to reduce BPA use.
Bisphenol S, sometimes used as a replacement for BPA when making receipts, has also been shown to exhibit very similar properties to BPA, potentially being more toxic in fact.
This is a very recent topic of research, but begs the question — will consumers accept a potential risk to health simply because it hasn’t yet been studied in as much depth as BPA? The harmfulness of CFCs and asbestos for example lacked a great body of research when scientists first researched it — absence of conclusive evidence is not conclusive evidence of absence.
“Supplementary use of bisphenol S (BPS) and other BPA analogues have shown similar toxicological characteristics. Chen et al. reported a similar or a greater estrogenic activity in bisphenol AF, BPF, BPS and BPB compared to BPA”
Thermal paper is often not recycled either as BPA and BPS are easily released into the air when this is done. If recycled, they may also contaminate the new products made from the recycled materials.
So what can be done about this?
Much like the infamous straw, we can’t just get rid of receipts. They serve a purpose — in this case receipts are essential to provide proof of purchase for customers. When a customer wants to return an item, they are expected to provide a receipt as proof of their transaction. People are understandably reluctant to give their email and personal details to the cashier, wanting to avoid being bombarded by promotional emails, therefore opting for the paper receipt to save time and hassle. Changing the paper type would only increase business costs without reducing the damage from creating the paper in the first place.
KodyPay offers a simple solution. When purchasing anything using the KodyPay app, you will always receive a simple, digitised e-receipt with a scannable QR code on your mobile device. No paper required. You only need to use the receipt if making a return — just like you would with a normal paper receipt. The store will not ask for your email address or personal details to spam you and you can store all your receipts easily and in one place.
Just as we moved from the plastic straw to the paper straw, perhaps it’s time for us to go from the paper receipt to its digital counterpart.
At least a digital receipt won’t melt in your mouth like a paper straw does.
To find out more about KodyPay, check out kodypay.com or view our Instagram.
