So I've got an idea. I've been sitting on this idea for years now, and it looks like I'm never going to be the one to make it, but it IS going to get made by someone. I hope at least. It doesn't take a genius.
Receipts are useless pieces of paper. Most of them get thrown out instantly. We waste so much paper and so many resources to create all of this receipt paper. It is ALL waste...
Every last scrap of receipt paper will end up in the trash one day. The amount of water we use to create the paper, the amount of energy we waste manufacturing and transporting everything and the amount of trees we cut down are all pointless. Not to mention the man hours spent making little slips of trash that NOBODY wants.
If we could save all of this and use it for something else. If the 9.6 million trees that we cut down EVERY YEAR could be used to offset all of the CO2 in the air and create more oxygen, the air would be fresher and smell better everywhere you go.
We would have less water restrictions if the 1.6 BILLION gallons of water we use every year to produce the paper could be used for ANYTHING else.
Our gas and electric prices would go down, if the amount of oil we used for cutting down trees, transporting them and the amount of electricity we used for manufacturing the paper could be stored and used for something more productive.
Imagine the innovation if all of the people focused on getting us cheaper paper were working on something else. Anything else.
But the problem is: No one wants to listen. I've been talking to everyone I know about this. I have an idea.
This WILL eventually happen. Whether I do it, or someone else figures it out. There will be no more paper receipts. We can create a website where all of your receipts are stored digitally. This should be mandatory. There shouldn't be an option. You know it will eventually come to this. We should start now.
You want to cut down the trees and use them for something else? Fine, I don't think anyone has a problem with that. You can build a house...you can make a lot of really useful things with wood. Paper is just waste. It's a complete and total waste of a tree. We think we need it, but once we're dead, we've cut down a tree that is older than us and NONE of that paper that you have saved in a filing cabinet will be worth anything to anyone.
If we could piggyback on the machines that are already used by credit card companies to charge you, the information could be sent to the website, without anyone having to switch anything over. Every single business that takes credit cards could do this right now with a software addition, or change. A lot of POS systems are basically computers connected to the internet.
It would be easy. Imagine if you could get rid of all of the paper receipts that you get every day. That are thrown on the floor in your car. That take up space in your drawer "just in case" you ever decide to return that thing...
Everyone would follow suit. We're already trying to get paperless billing. That would be one less thing. No more junk mail included with your bills. All that advertising that you don't even look at.
Imagine how easy it would be to keep track of all of your information online. You could sort things into folders. You could keep important receipts in a custom folder titled "possible returns." You could keep business receipts in a folder titled "expenses." Instead of having to keep them all in your wallet or your purse, you know that you'd have them online. No more worrying about them getting messed up or lost.
We could do a lot of things with this. I'm sure that more imaginative people will come up with more things that could be done with this, but it CAN be done and it WILL be done. We just need to be the ones that do it.
But no one wants to listen to me. Because you don't know my name. You don't see me on TV. You don't hear me on the radio. I'm not famous. I'm not in the public eye.
That sucks.
It makes me wonder how many more incredible ideas are either out there, or have disappeared forever because no one would listen. Mine isn't even that good. It's obvious. It's been obvious for a long time. Yet still, here I am without a soul willing to listen to me.
I hope that there is no one else out there with an idea that can't get made because you're a nobody like me. It's a tough place to be.
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