Every receipt is a small piece of a very large problem.

Paper we can't recycle, from trees we can't spare

Britain prints around 11.2 billion receipts a year. Almost none of them can be recycled, because the vast majority are printed on thermal paper — a material coated so that heat, not ink, forms the text. That coating is exactly what makes the paper unrecyclable, and it means a receipt's entire journey is a straight line from the till to the bin.

Getting that paper to the counter has a cost of its own. Supplying the UK with receipt paper is estimated to fell in the region of 87,000 trees every year, alongside the water and energy it takes to pulp, coat and ship them — all for a slip of paper most people are holding for a matter of seconds.

The ink is the real problem

Thermal receipts aren't printed with ink at all. The paper is coated in bisphenols — most commonly BPA, or its near-identical substitute BPS — which are endocrine disruptors: chemicals that mimic oestrogen and interfere with metabolism, growth and reproduction.

They don't stay on the paper. Bisphenols transfer to skin on contact, and studies have found that holding a single receipt for a few seconds can be enough to matter — with hand sanitiser increasing how much passes through the skin. When receipts do reach the recycling stream, the coating leaches into the pulp and follows recycled fibre into products like paper towels and food packaging.

“We do not recommend recycling receipts unless they are known to be bisphenol-free.”— Fidra, environmental charity

Our answer: skip the slip entirely

The cleanest receipt is the one that was never printed. Talea is a small box that sits beside your existing till and reads the receipt it already prints. Your customer taps their phone, and the receipt is theirs — digitally, forever. No paper, no coating, no bin.

• Every Talea till takes thousands of paper receipts out of circulation each year.
• No thermal paper means no bisphenols passing through anyone's hands.
• It works with the tills shops already own, so switching costs the planet nothing extra.

We think a receipt should be a record, not a liability. Getting there is the whole point of Talea.