Waste not, want not

I was sitting in one of my favorite coffee houses and waiting for my friend.  Having ordered my cup of Americano I started to play with my receipt.  For the first time I began to really pay attention to it.  It was a foot long!  It had many numbers printed on it along with unintelligible Korean words and phrases.  My mind began to whirl!  Why in the world do I always need a 1-foot receipt for a 3,500 won (about $3.50)  cup of coffee??

It doesn't matter which coffee house I visit, I get the same 1-foot long receipt for a single cup of coffee.  
As most of you know I do not consider myself good at math.  However, I am sure when you add up hundreds of thousands of cups of coffee being sold in Korea in a single day (100+ Starbucks in Seoul alone), that miles of receipts in length would be easy to imagine.
  
I am not sure how many receipts you get out of a single tree, (I know I sound like Al Gore) but I am sure many trees are cut down just so we coffee drinkers in Korea can have our precious foot-long papers in hand.  The paper does verify my price, but I already knew my price before I ordered since it is on the menu board in big letters hanging behind the counter.
  
Perhaps the 1-footers are given as souvenirs so the recipients can proudly display the business to any one curious enough to look at them.  Or, perhaps they are given so business people can actually take the expense off their income tax, assuming they can do that in Korea.  I have not mentioned this theory to Bonnie lest she saves them in her many boxes of collectibles marked "important," just in the case the IRS invades our home for a fist full of dollars.  They haven't shown up in 40 years but the boxes are still there just in case.

Back from my digressions:  having finished my examination of the  necessary, but somewhat worthless receipt, I must decide what to do with it.  Since I usually hate making decisions it takes time for me to decide what is best; the trash can, my pocket, leave it on the table or perhaps give it to someone coming in to the cafe so he does not have to have a new one printed just for him.  But that might be offensive.  Who wants a used receipt??
  
I choose to throw it away in the trash.  But there is a problem.  The trash is already full of these 1-footers.  Oh well, I wad it up and leave it on the trash bin counter.  No good! Someone sees me and graciously informs me I have left my receipt and hands it back to me.  Some people must really keep these things!  Who would have thought it?  He must work for the IRS.