Sometimes, I like to give props to companies who are taking even the smallest initiative to be eco-friendly.
I was surprised to find that Karns, a local grocery chain, had different register paper so the receipt came out half the size of the monstrous receipts I get at Giant Foods, simply by printing on both sides of the paper. It's a little confusing the first time you look at your receipt; it looks incomplete. But, lo and behold, I flipped it over and there my tally continued, with no space-wasting frills. That is a great way to cut paper use in half. Kudos to Karns.
This post would be incomplete if I didn't also mention the growing concern about all these thermal receipts we collect -- the presence of BPA (Bisphenol-A) on them.
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| Handle BPA-laden thermal receipts with care—or not at all! |
Just today, I saw an article (which of course I can't find now) on this, and when I searched, came across this one. You can Google it yourself; these articles date back to 2000, but it's definitely attracting more media attention. As the Fox story says, some stores are already using BPA-free paper: Trader Joe’s, Home Depot, Albertson’s, Ace Hardware, Wal-Mart, Sears and Costco.
The super creepy thing about BPA is that you can't wash it off your hands. Anything that it touches, it attaches to, like paper money, your clothes, your skin. Ick. So what should you do with all these receipts? Recycle them, right? No, says the Washington Toxics Coalition. Read this short post on how to dispose of them and how to avoid BPA-laden receipts in the first place.
