Thermal paper used for receipts cannot be recycled. This type of paper has been
impregnated so heavily with chemicals that attempts to recycle it have been
unsuccessful. This may be a result of the acids used to cause a chemical
reaction when heat transfers an image onto the paper. We're no scientists, but
we're fairly sure that's not a good thing – acid anyway.
We Love Trees
It takes approximately 15 trees to produce a single ton of paper. Receipt paper
demands in the US are 640,000 tons per year. This equates to 9,600,000 millions
trees cut down each year just to produce paper receipts.
Oil Is Coming Up Short
It takes approximately 390 gallons of oil to produce a single ton of paper. At
640,000 tons of thermal receipt paper demanded per year, that's 249,600,000
gallons of oil used during production. That much oil could produce 115,885,714
gallons of gas that could fill 7,023,376 gas tanks (assuming an average tank
size of 16.5 gallons).
Exhaust Makes Us Cough
The amount of CO2 emitted by producing one ton of receipt paper is equivalent to
the amount of exhaust a car emits while driving for an entire year. That's
640,000 cars driving 24/7 for an entire year.
Tall Glass of Murky Water
It takes approximately 19,075 gallons of H2O to produce a single ton of paper.
This equates to 1,220,800,000 gallons of H2O used during the production process
of receipt paper. That's a lot of showers and swimming pools without water.
Trash Cans and Landfill Waste
Approximately 2,278 lbs of trash is produced while producing a single ton of
receipt paper. This means 1,457,920,000 lbs of trash are being fed into our
landfill. This produces enough CO2 emissions to significantly damage the earth's
ozone layer, leading to global warming.