My colleagues over at SoftwareAdvice.com have recently posted a very interesting article and poll on their website. It addresses the impact that printed receipts have on society’s paper consumption.

I have to be honest. I regularly use printed receipts for posting bank debit transactions to my check register and documenting purchases for tax purposes. And, for me personally, it would be a BIG sacrifice to go paperless! But, I truly feel it all boils down to learning a new behavior and knowing that the end result is worth it.

As stated in the Software Advice article, there are several environmental drawbacks to receipt/paper manufacturing. Deforestation, Co2 Emissions, Water & Oil consumption, and Trash are all factored into the manufacturing of the finished paper products. Additionally, there can be BPA exposure via some thermal paper receipts and credit card receipt products.

The folks over at allEtronic are a progressive company that are paving the way to providing digital receipts for everyone. You can set up a free online account to have your generated transactions sent to.

I realize this is all pretty new and will take quite sometime to be accepted by businesses and consumers. But, as mentioned in Software Advice’s article, paper manufacturing and usage is a huge environmental concern, and alternatives must be sought out.

Please jump over to the article at SoftwareAdvice.com and be sure to take their poll.