Receipts aren’t really something I think about a lot. I think that’s probably the case for most people – we might keep them in order to keep track of our purchases, but that’s about it. I definitely never really thought about just how much paper people use to print receipts every day, but it makes a lot of sense. It definitely feels wasteful, especially given the fact that the chemicals used make the receipts unrecycleable, which I actually wasn’t aware of.
It was also interesting – and a little scary – to learn about how harmful the chemicals actually are. It kind of surprised me that it’s 2025 and companies are still using something like this – but of course, it’s cheap, which is the most important thing to many corporations. It will definitely make me think twice about asking for a receipt, even though I don’t usually get one unless I think I might need it to return something.
https://share.upmc.com/2025/07/are-receipts-toxic/