You will be very surprised - but small paper checks are a huge environmental hazard. Moreover, for business, this way of storing information is unprofitable and unreliable.
In the USA alone, about 12.4 million trees, more than 40 million liters of water and 1.8 tons of CO2 are used to produce paper cheques every year.
In addition, more than 90% of receipts contain substances BPA or BPS, which are disruptive to the human endocrine system. The consequences of these substances are staggering. People working at the cash desk and receiving cheques have 30% more BPA and BPS in their bodies.
If the checks are so harmful - why do we still use them?
A sensible solution is to completely eliminate paper cheques from circulation.
It's easy to give up paper checks. But what about confidentiality? After each purchase, the buyer must provide an email address where the email check will be sent. Each time we provide the email address, we risk receiving a huge amount of spam. How can the seller efficiently store the emails he receives? A business should not invest in cheques, but in creating privacy and personal data protection programs for the buyer.
The benefits of eliminating paper checks are obvious.
Companies that refuse any paper checks save hundreds of millions of dollars. These are direct costs of buying paper and savings from fast electronic sales system optimization.
Paper cheques are not recyclable.
Most people didn't know that fact. But paper checks are not used for recycling. The chemicals that make up the paper are very harmful to the environment. They take up more space in the office. Cheques contaminate water and soil very much because of the phenol in them.
Paper receipts contain substances that are hormonal destroyers.
Some companies, such as Apple, Costco and others, offer cheques without this dangerous substance. But there are very few such companies in the world.
What advantages does the company get?
The company no longer spends money on paper money.
Customer data can now be personalized. The check interfered a lot with that. Now the information about each client is recorded in the common database. The business is improving customer service.
No need to wait for the government to pay attention to this problem. Like banning cellophane bags, for example. Take the initiative into your own hands!
