Project Proposal:
The Impact of Paper Receipts on our Environment & Society
This project will explore the negative impacts of printed paper receipts on two fronts: the large amount of material waste that their production entails, and the impact of toxins contained in the receipts (namely BPA) on the humans handling them. Further, receipts are not recyclable because of their plastic linings, meaning all paper used to produce them will be wasted. At this point in time, we have the technology in place to make paper receipts obsolete. Digital receipts are an extremely accessible technology for any business, and should replace paper receipts entirely. That we’re still using paper receipts is truly ridiculous.
I plan to make a vector based map detailing the impacts of receipts, using color, graphs, and iconography. I’l be making it in illustrator. I’ll be drawing inspiration from similar graphics created & posted to the website “InformationIsBeautiful.net”.
Some (slightly conflicting) Research:
“Every year in the United States alone, we waste 1 billion gallons of water, 10 million trees, and 250 million gallons of oil on something that’s ultimately going to be thrown in the trash. In fact, paper receipts account for 1.5 billion pounds of environmental waste a year.”
“Each year in the U.S., up to 10 million trees are used to make the paper. And 21 billion gallons of water are used. The annual waste from receipts in the U.S. is 686 million pounds of waste. Skipping receipts would save 12 billion pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2), the equivalent of one million cars on the road.”
Reference Images:
Idea board:
*Concept Section contains additional 2 paragraph project description
Final Work:
