Every Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays I eat dinner at fast food restaurants. I always ask for my receipt but then I usually just leave it on my tray. Whenever I ride the bus I am given a ticket. I stuff it in my coin purse or bag and forget about it until such time it starts to overflow.
I know receipts and tickets are needed to confirm transaction of sale and to ensure that the establishment pays taxes. However, imagine the amount of paper used in making these and the trash accumulated by it. Bus tickets litter the floor of the vehicle and sometimes inserted in the nook and corners of the bus seat.
At first I thought what if we just use e-tickets and e-receipts. Like in Singapore, buses use a card that you just need to swipe for your payment. We can do that for buses but there are times when we need receipts for reimbursement purposes or when filing taxes at BIR. I think that one very simple alternative we can explore to address the problem in paper wastage and littering is to put recycle bins specifically for receipts and bus tickets in the restaurants and buses, respectively. The bins will be placed near the door so that the commuters and diners can drop off the papers before leaving. 4
The government needs to help implement this endeavor. It can give incentives to printing shops that will accept old tickets and receipts. The shops will recycle these and use it to create new ticket papers and receipts. Meanwhile, the establishment or bus owners will experience the following benefits:
1. Lower printing costs because they will get a discount for bringing their own paper (the old tickets and receipts). They only need to pay for the printing and not anymore for the paper.
2. It will be good for the company's reputation because they will be seen as caring for the environment. It can even be their CSR program.
3. Less litter.
The recycle bin can also have a shredder function to cater to those who are concerned about security. An example is those who dine in expensive restaurants and pay thousands of pesos for their meals.
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