California may ask businesses to switch to electronic receipts



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Funny recipes have inspired Halloween costumes, fueled the outrage of social media and earned investigative journalism treatment. Now California lawmakers are considering repressing them in the name of reducing waste and energy.

General Assembly Bill Phil Ting passed his first hurdle on Monday when the state assembly's natural resources commission voted 6 to 3 to send the bill to its next hearing. commission. When it is passed and the California Governor, Gavin Newsom (D) signs it, companies would have until 2022 to move to an electronic receipt system and provide paper receipts to customers only upon request.

"Most of us do not need a physical receipt for every transaction. Kill as many trees and produce 12 billion pounds of carbon emissions, the equivalent of a million cars on the road, does not make sense to produce something which we do not often need, "said Ting in a statement, when presenting the bill earlier this year.

His office noted that many receipts have become excessively long because of the "coupons, promotions and surveys" that companies attach to them. The CVS pharmacy chain is perhaps the most famous for this.

The financial penalties proposed by Ting are not severe, especially for a large company such as CVS. Any company found to be in violation of the amended rules would be given two warnings before being able to incur a fine of $ 25 per day with a maximum annual fine of $ 300. Some small businesses with gross annual revenues of less than $ 1 million and cash-only operations would be exempt.

The proposal to repress the recipes, which often can not be recycled because of paper additives, is in line with efforts in the state and elsewhere to ban plastic straws, another consumer bill that is difficult to recycle because of of its small size.

The bill enjoys the support of many environmental groups, but has not attracted the attention of business leaders, who believe that it would be costly for many companies to switch to a point system. sale capable of processing electronic receipts.

With the adoption of Monday, Ting's bill will now be put to the vote of the Assembly's Committee on the Protection of Privacy and Consumers.

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