Goal For The Green

Did you know that Yellow Pages advertising is over 100 years old? Unfortunately, since the first Yellow Pages directory was printed back in 1883, there has been very little variation to the formula: businesses pay a premium to advertise in the Yellow Pages directory, and a large directory is printed by the Yellow Pages operator, to be distributed free to the public every year.

Since, the Yellow Pages was started however, the world has changed DRAMATICALLY. Most people now use the Internet, to conduct even their local searches and with their Internet. Today,with enabled mobile handsets permanently by their side, it is becoming almost impossible to justify the continued production and distribution of Yellow Pages paper directories, at such a massive cost to the environment. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is in helpful response, to a request from Software Advice, a website that reviews retail point of sale software.  They want to get rid of paper receipts. It is a peeve of mine, and I agree with the idea enthusiastically.  So, they’ve asked members of the green community to weigh in by taking a short poll. You can take the short poll here:

Software Advice thinks paper receipts represent a wasteful vestige of the last millennium. There is no reason – legal or otherwise – why consumers or retailers, need paper receipts. Electronic receipts are completely valid and they are far more efficient.

Moreover, the production of paper receipts, does some real damage to our environment. For example, 9,600,000 million trees are cut down each year just to produce paper receipts. Additionally, roughly 2,278 lbs of trash is produced during the production of a single ton of receipt paper. This means 1,457,920,000 lbs of trash are being fed into our landfill just to make receipts (according to AllEtronic).

So, what will it take to end paper receipts? Strong incentives, primarily monetary incentives. We need to motivate consumers and retailers, to push toward the vision of paperless retail purchases. To see a list of motivations, and continue reading their article, please visit: Please Kill the Paper Receipt If you didn’t take the poll, at the link at the top of this post, be sure to take it at the above linked article.  This poll is very important, as is your participation in it, because thermal receipt paper cannot be recycled!

When it comes to saving money and the environment, I jump at the chance to champion a cause I believe in. The thing I like about this program, is you are saving storage space and cutting down on clutter around the house. You are saving time by not having to recycle, and most importantly you are saving trees and helping the environment. I think this is a win-win answer for anyone’s reading pleasure. Read the rest of this entry »