The Paper Trail

You dropped this

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The supermarket is a place of routine. The usual aisle stops for our preferred items, the hum of the coolers keeping food fresh, the ticking roll of the cart in front of you. By the time I’m at checkout I’m practically sleepwalking. (Remember how jarring it was when the shelves were empty? We’re back to satiety.)

Pile items onto belt, type in phone number for discounts, tap phone to pay, take receipt from the checker and put it in my reusable bag, slide out of the store.

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I was completing this zombie walk to the finish line the other day and I was just conscious enough to notice that the trash can by the store exit was piled high with crumpled receipts. Next to it, a recycle bin was also full of receipts. Next to that, a specialized bin for plastic bag recycling was ALSO full of receipts.

Receipts are made with thermal paper. They aren’t recyclable, no matter which bin you stuff them in.

These damned receipts, I thought. They’re forgotten in shopping carts, lingering in my reusable bags, littering the parking lot, jammed into my purse. I don’t need them 99.9% of the time. Clearly, all these other wayward receipts were not needed, either.

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Why don’t we have digital receipts at supermarkets?

Retailers like clothing stores have been offering digital receipts for a very long time. They’ll ask for your email address and send it that way. I don’t love being on mailing lists but I do love emailed receipts. No clutter, and I don’t have to worry about losing them, either.

Supermarkets have a constant flow of customers and it would be pretty crazy to ask every person to relate their email address to the checker. It’s like the older person ahead of you laboriously writing a check times a million. No thanks.

But then it hit me - the supermarket already HAS my email address. And even better, when I enter my phone number to get my loyalty rewards (which I always do), they have it at the ready, connected to my purchase. No new action would be needed from me or the checker for this interaction to go paperless.

I am no technology expert, but it seems they have at least some of the infrastructure in place to put this into practice. If they added an opt-in toggle on our accounts, we could choose to accept digital receipts for all our future purchases and never have to throw away a supermarket receipt again.

There’s no way I’m the first person who’s thought of this. I assume it’s a constant discussion in the boardrooms of major grocers. I googled it for a while but found nothing linking supermarket loyalty programs and digital receipts. Maybe they just need a push to make a change?

Printed receipts won’t go away completely. Providing paper as the default is important for those who don’t access or use technology in the same way. But how many millions of people would gleefully opt-in? It would make a huge difference.

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Taking Action

I’ve written a letter to Albertsons, Stater Bros, and Kroger (Ralphs), the three markets I’m most familiar with that have rewards programs. At the bottom of this newsletter is my form letter and links if you’d like to do the same. You can also make phone calls and/or use the postal service. (I plan on using multiple ways to contact them to maximize my reach.) If you frequent other supermarkets that offer loyalty programs, I would love it if you would comment with their contact info and I’ll add it to the list below. I’d also love to hear what kind of responses you get. Please note that I’m not bugging anyone who works at individual locations, this would need to come from corporate.

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Albertsons

https://www.albertsons.com/inquiry/contact-us.html
250 Parkcenter Blvd, Boise, ID 83706
208-395-6200

Stater Bros.

https://www.staterbros.com/contact/
301 S. Tippecanoe Ave. San Bernardino, CA 92408
855-782-8377

Kroger

https://https://www.kroger.com/hc/help/contact-us/customer-comments
1014 Vine St, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202-1100
513-762-4000

Hello,

I'm writing because I am concerned about the situation with printed receipts. Receipts are made with thermal paper which is not recyclable. We are all familiar with the nuisance and litter caused by discarded receipts. I am sure your company would save a large amount of money if you did not have to print them, and millions of pounds of waste would be kept out of landfills.

There are retailers that offer digital receipts, most often clothing retailers. At checkout, they ask for your email address and send you a digital receipt. In your case, the transaction would be even easier. You already have the email address of everyone who uses your loyalty rewards program. Your members could opt into a digital receipt program that would automatically email a receipt instead of printing one, with no extra employee interaction needed. A printed receipt would still be available for anyone who wants one.

I would hope that this idea, or some variation, is already under consideration. Please let me know what your company's stance is on digital receipts, if any.

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Your name

If you got this far, thank you. I told my kids about this and they urged me to follow through on sending letters and getting others to help. The energy required to make a difference is boosted by every interaction. I’m hoping to send a little make-a-change energy your way, too, however it manifests.

Take care!