Do you want a receipt?

Funny enough, today I got to realize something that happened to me twice: Why do they give us such an exaggerated amount of paper in the receipts when we purchase something? First, I recharged my metro card at one station and the screen of the machine clearly displayed “Do you want a receipt for your transaction?”, and obviously, I pressed “No” thinking that I didn’t want my pockets full of disposable information, you know? But then what happened? The ticket machine still printed a receipt for me! This is as though it was just giving me the illusion of getting rid of paper this time, but not for long. 

Next, I went to a music store to buy some strings for my guitar. This time I was quite sure I was not going to avoid the evil receipt, but then again, I figured that since I was just getting one single item, that it was going to be small. Of course not. I measured about 5 cm by 20 cm!! That is like 100 square centimeters of disposable information in the form of paper that nobody cares or wants to frame. Wouldn’t it be better to at least have the option of not having the receipt printed at all? I say this because when they ask you “Sir, do you want a receipt?” (and they have already printed the 100 square centimeters of …), they just throw it in the garbage. Very inefficient waste of paper, right? (Not that there is an efficient waste of paper but you get the idea) So, you can do the math of how big your evil receipt is going to be when you go grocery shopping!

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