Two-Sided Receipts

I just had a real “well duh” moment. In fact, I think a lot of the world just has a “well duh” moment.

UK food retailer Sainsbury’s has won the European Retail Solutions Best Green IT Initiative Award 2008 for using simultaneous two-sided thermal receipt printers from NCR Corporation in its store checkouts. Read more here.

Sainsbury reports that they use 40% less paper with their new printers, saving 502,000 rolls of paper every year, and they haven’t even implemented the new printers into all of their stores – they’re only in half of them. That means that this ONE retailed will save over a million rolls of paper every year when the new printers are in all of their stores (which they say will happen within the next two years).

Well duh. It never even occurred to me how much paper I through away in the form of receipts every year. It’s just a little piece of paper – I don’t think about it as I throw it away, but it adds up. Some stores print return policies on the back of their receipts, but really, that could be listed at the bottom of the receipt instead of printed continuously on the back, which would free up the space for a two-sided receipt.

Great pick for the award. I can’t wait to start seeing these in stores around the world. It just makes sense.

This goes to show that green innovation doesn’t have to be costly or crazy. It just takes one good idea to save an entire forest of trees.

Picture from sxc.hu.