a thermally printable commercially functional cash register tape produced from a thin machine direction oriented , heat stabilized , multi - layer , coextruded thermoplastic film is described . this thermoplastic tape replaces the currently used paper cash register tape . it will accept printing , has sufficient machine direction stiffness and sufficiently reduced surface electrical charges to function in conventional commercial cash register printers . the thermoplastic tape is much thinner than the conventional paper tape so a roll of the plastic register tape contains about 4 . 7 times the paper length of a typical cash register roll .