California Lawmaker Wants to Ban Paper Receipts, Require Digital Ones (cnbc.com)

A California assemblyman has introduced a law barring retailers from printing paper receipts unless a customer requests one. Otherwise they'd be required to provide proof-or-purchase receipts "only in electronic form."

: An anonymous reader quotes CNBC: Stores that give out printed receipts without first being asked by the customer could be subject to fines [of $25 per day, up to $300 per year].... Proponents of the bill say the legislation would help reduce waste as well as contaminants in the recycling stream from toxins often used to coat the paper-based receipts... Up to 10 million trees and 21 billion gallons of water are used annually in the U.S. to create receipts, according to Green America, a green ecology organization. It said receipts annually generate 686 million pounds of waste and 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of 1 million cars on the road...

Then again, the use of electronic receipts raises some privacy concerns since retailers usually require an email address for an electronic receipt and companies will then be able to potentially track and collect more data about customers.
If the bill passes, digital receipts would become California's default option on January 1, 2022.

Comments

Re:As long as the government pays...

[b0s0z0ku]

You can still get a paper receipt if you ask, and you don't actually need a phone to have a receipt emailed to you.

No way. Now how.

[ebonum]

I need a receipt and there is no way in H*** you are getting my email.

Re:Good ol Cali

[careysub]

Don't worry, you can just clean all that up using one of those free plastic bags you get at the grocery store.

Ooops, they banned those in CA as well....

Which worked really, really well! With the success of that law, nine other states are currently planning on copying.

As right-wingers love to lecture, nothing is "free", those "free" bags cost money, and since retail is a highly competitive, low margin business, those "free" bags had gotten so cr_ppy as to be almost worthless - requiring multiple bagging to hold anything of any weight, if they would even then.

Now, if you need a bag, and don't want to pay $2 for one of those nice sewn waterproof fabric bags at the checkout counter that are indefinitely reusable, you can buy a disposable plastic bag for a dime. And that bag is so nice, being large and sturdy, that it can be reused indefinitely. Throwing away piles of flimsy one-use bags is a thing of the past.

I would object strenuously if someone proposed going back. It is much better without those "free" bags.

Re: Good ol Cali

[jrumney]

Paper straws instead of plastic is fine. But when the conversation in a shop goes: "do you want to sign up for our loyalty card"; "No" (I don't need more tracking, thanks); "OK, so what's your email address"; "Sorry? I said no"; "oh, I still need it, its for the receipt"... digital receipts are not about the environment I'm afraid.

Nope

[aepervius]

Paper usually decompose quite well , and most of it return to the atmosphere under the form of CO2, possibly methane both which are not sequestered, it just seep up. But the whole cutting wood, pulping it, producing paper cutting it to rolls, producing ink, delivering that ink/paper, all cost CO2. So this is not carbon neutral, even if your paper was not decomposing.