Campaigners are calling for new laws to prevent print receipts from being printed unless customers specifically ask for them in a bid to reduce waste.
It is thought that the move could save up to a billion pieces of paper from being printed, according to environmental campaigners.
READ MORE: Anger at swans nesting in rubbish in Scottish park
According to reports, over than 11 billion receipts are issued across the UK, with 1 billion being printed in Scotland alone.
Despite the slips being more biodegradable than ordinary paper, the printing of receipts still wastes 7.5m kg each year and cannot be recycled.
READ MORE: Climate change protesters to ‘pause rebellion’ ahead of political negotiations
Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, told The Scotsman that new legislation that bans the printing of receipts would help reduce waste.
In a column in The Scotsman, Dr Dixon said: “There used to be security reasons to have a receipt but nowadays smart scanners, automated tills and card payments mean most shops know more about our buying habits than we do ourselves.
“Some shops now email you a receipt rather than give you anything on paper. Some shops already ask if you want a receipt before printing one and there is no reason that this could not become the legal requirement, slashing the number of receipts overnight.
“Till receipts do not make up a huge volume of our waste but, like plastic shopping bags, they are symbolic of our wasteful habits, because they are something we come across every day.”
Environment secretary Roseanna Cunningham said: “Reducing waste and encouraging people to recycle is key in our development towards a more circular economy.
“We are aware that many retailers have rolled out digital receipts systems in recent years. This is indicative of a move away from paper receipts within the retail sector – with more and more businesses asking customers if they want paper receipts or offering the option of a digital receipt – which is very positive, and we hope these systems will be more widely used in the future.
“The Expert Panel, formed to look at issues around single-use items, is focused on identifying measures to tackle plastic pollution. They are currently considering items which are challenging to recycle, such as single-use disposable beverage cups, as a priority.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel