Self: Diff for "Receipts"

Receipts

Every year, an estimated 250 billion paper receipts are offered US customers. Many are automatically printed, declined by customers, and collected for disposal. Concerns have been raised about BPA in thermal paper and some municipalities do not permit thermal paper in recycling streams. What can be done to reduce this annoyance and the waste stream? In some cases, simply changing the store policy to print upon demand will reduce receipt printing by an estimated factor of 30 in campus coffee shops and markets.

Resources

IRS on record keeping http://www.irs.gov/publications/p552/ar02.html

Bisphenol A (BPA) in thermal paper http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/

Thermal printing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_printing

Retail sales data http://www.economagic.com/cenret.htm#USRet_SA

"Bisphenol A Alternatives in Thermal Paper" http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/bpa/aa-for-bpa-full-version.pdf from BPA Alternatives in Thermal Paper Partnership http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/bpa/milestones.htm

BPA free thermal paper (Appvion, Appleton WI) http://www.appvion.com/en-us/products/thermal/Pages/default.aspx, http://www.appvion.com/en-us/products/thermal/Documents/Therm_BPA_Free_Statement.pdf

Participants

Carlsmith

Rachel Feil, LEED AP BD+C, Communications Coordinator - Office of Sustainability, Writing Editor - The Wisconsin Engineer Magazine, Civil Engineering & Environmental Studies Undergraduate, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Andrea Perkins, REthink.org

Bret Shaw, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 608-890-1878, brshaw@wisc.edu, http://lsc.wisc.edu/index.php/faculty-staff/faculty/bret-shaw