Sunday, August 23

Post from the Past: Thank you for not giving me a receipt

This morning I stopped at Costco to get gas and was asked a question that I have never been asked before, “Would you like a receipt?”

I was so happy to be asked that question that I immediately said NO. I had plenty of receipts in my wallet so I just wrote the amount and date on one of those.

Most times when I am asked this question I say Yes because even if I say no, they still print a receipt and throw it away. When I say yes I can at least bring it home and either recycle it or shred it. But not this time; this time no receipt was printed!

Good for you Costco!

This might seem like a little thing but it really isn’t.

  • Let’s say that 1000 people get gas at Costco per day (I have a sneaky suspicion that it is more).
  • Now let’s say that ¼ of those people don’t get a receipt.
  • That means that 250 receipts would not be printed.
  • Now let’s times that # by 365 days.
  • That would mean that, over the course of a year, 91,250 receipts would not be printed, at just 1 Costco location.
  • Now multiply that by the number of Costco gas locations….

See how quickly the little things add up.

In the long run I am sure that this saves Costco $ too but that is good too.

Saving trees, resources, & $ is good for all of us!

6 comments:

pelf said...

In my country, the cashiers don't normally print receipts unless we asked for us (for various reasons). But I have never thought of it like you just analyzed. Funny how our brains work, heh? :)

marina villatoro said...

don't get me started on receipts. here it's the stupidest system ever! first you go to one counter and you have to get a receipt to take it to the guy that will get our item. once he got it, he gives you ANOTHER receipt to take to the register. there they give you THREE RECEIPTS one for them, one for another guy who has your item to take home and one for you!!!!!
you leave the stores wondering: are you f**king kidding me!

Over Coffee - the green edition said...

Isn’t it interesting how different countries do things differently too.

You crack me up Marina! I can just picture you going to the store for the first time ;-)

marina villatoro said...

So weird here. A lot of stuff simply doesn't make sense. If you can believe it, all this is done for a nail that costs less than 10 cents!

Nicole Feliciano said...

I'm with you. One place where I get lunch has a two receipt system--drives me bananas. I have talked to the manager about trimming the waste--not luck. Believe it or not it is for an organic lunch spot.

Eco Yogini said...

I totally had this experience the other day- I decided (I think after reading one of your 3R posts) to refuse receipts, or take them home to recycle with me.
When the cashier asked me if I wanted my receipt I proudly said: 'Will you recycle it?' She said: 'well no' Me: 'Well in that case I'll bring it home and recycle it'.
She printed off another receipt and handed it to me.

LOL. So now, I have to watch expectantly to see if another receipt is automatically printed off, or not. My proud eco-moment was squashed! hah.