Save The Environment, Step 1: Exact Change

Some people have some very strange ideas on how to go about saving our environment. There's even a wacky sect that doesn't care at all. Keeps rambling about creation and Jesus Christ and stuff. Let's not discuss those ones.

We know that every single day, 25,000 trees die of asphyxiation and being cut down and such. Not only that, but 200,000 crickets are eaten by frogs per day- that's not an exaggeration, those are the cold, hard facts! And in just one 24-hour period!


Now, trees shelter the crickets, which prevents the frogs from eating them. The only problem with this is the thousands of frogs which will die periodically of cricket deprivation; but there's a balance to everything and we will find it eventually. For now, I'd rather see 20,000 frogs die each day than 200,000 crickets. Crickets are tasty.


So. How do we save the 25,000 trees? Simple. Exact change. Try this:

Go to convenience store. Buy a drink. Maybe a canned coffee product. Those am (sic) expensive. Now, checkout.

What happened? You paid with a $100 bill (or at least this is how it went in my fictional completely true experience), and they gave you change back. Then you climbed back in your Jaguar to return to your high-paying CEO job and realized...they also gave you a receipt.


Every day, more than 1 billion receipts are printed in Kansas alone. That amounts to about 400 billion receipts per day worldwide. Every 1,000 receipts weighs an average of 15 lbs. That's 1,050,000,000 pounds of paper I think- a lot of useless paper, filling up our landfills and killing all the crocodiles that usually call those landfills home sweet landfill.

Each tree weighs an average of 38,000 pounds. That's roughly 27,500 trees worth of paper we could save if we could eliminate these vile receipt-fiends.


I have a solution. Brethren, we have vic'try:

Provide exact change! With exact change, there's no loose ends to tie up, so you have a fun, safe, frog-loving paperless transaction. Otherwise, they have to print up the receipt to see how much money to give you back. This also takes time.

Think of the shoplifter: in and out of store very fast. No receipts for them; they're actually halping- oh my, I have no idea what just happened, sorry- they're actually helping the environment by shoplifting.

You- yes, you- can be just like a petty thief if you provide exact change. All you'll need for this Step is to carry around 100 pennies at all times, preferably leaving the house with...400 billion receipts = 100 per person per day, maximum of 99 pennies needed per receipt...about 9,900 pennies for your 100 transactions, max of 99 pennies needed per transaction. (Be prepared.) You can do it. For your children. For the frogs...for those tasty crickets.

Second thought, who could possibly blame those frogs?