Assemblyman submits bill to cut paper receipts. We have the receipts from his last attempt

Assembly member Phil Ting looks again at the boat, aiming for receipts, which he drastically hopes . However, Ting lost his first round of rock, paper, scissors.

More than three years after criticism from the paper industry and business groups torpedoed its bill to cut paper receipts, the San Francisco legislature reintroduced its so-called Skip the Slip legislation on Thursday, citing environmental and health benefits.

“There’s no point in killing so many trees and emitting billions of pounds of CO2” when physical receipts are largely unwanted by consumers, Ting said.

Ting had introduced similar legislation in 2019, which was initially passed by the state assembly despite concerns from business groups including the California Chamber of Commerce, California Grocers Assn. and California Restaurant Assn., before falling short in the Senate.

The bill was watered down before finally being sidelined later in 2019. “We are very disappointed,” Ting said at the time, vowing to try again.

The new bill includes provisions to introduce fines totaling $300 a year for companies that don’t comply: Receipts will only be issued upon request; they must not contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals; and they “cannot be longer than necessary.”

a report of the Ecology Center found in 2018 that more than 90% of the tested receipts contained bisphenol A (BPA) or bisphenol S (BPS). Both can be absorbed through skin contact and lead to negative effects on “hormones, metabolism and other body systems,” the report said.

Non-profit organization Green America estimates that “receipts consume 3,680,000 trees and 10 billion gallons of water in the US each year”. In addition, 86% of Americans surveyed would “like to see retailers offer digital receipts.”

The Justice Department estimated it would cost $717,000 to add staff to enforce the previous Skip the Slip law.

Matt Sutton, a lobbyist with the California Restaurant Assn., told The Times in 2019 that the mandate would cost eateries about $35,000 if they didn’t have a POS system that could handle electronic receipts.

The association did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether many restaurants have moved to such systems in the years since.

Despite the failure of the 2019 bill, many retailers have taken steps to limit their receipt footprints. CVS, Whole Foods and Taco Bell and other stores have taken steps to shorten or eliminate paper receipts, according to Green America.