How about plastic notes? They are durable, recyclable, and because they are money, not likely to end up in our oceans as wastes.
By the way, from Antwerp, Belgium to Boston, MA is 3607 nm, roughly 6680 km, much shorter actually.
- [0] http://ports.com/sea-route/#/?a=4063&b=4693&c=Port%20of%20Ko... - [1] http://ports.com/sea-route/#/?a=3042&b=682&c=Port%20of%20Ant...
>It’s not halfway across the globe
Equator is 40k km long, so it makes sense getting "halfway" there would be 20k km. But the "half" is of something, and it doesn't sound right that "at the end of the globe" would be the same place you started with. Especially since being "on the other end of the world" means roughly, well, opposite side of the globe.
So I think OP is justified in defining "across the globe" as the "opposite side of the world", and then "halfway across the globe" is "quarter the length of equator away". But maybe I'm overthinking it.
And while 100+ years ago it made sense from a logistics point of view - use hard to find materials to fight counterfeiting - I don't believe that's a valid argument anymore.
It's been grown in that part of Europe for thousands of years and in the 19th century it was a major industry there. I don't think it's still a major crop in Belgium (too low margin) but the company in question is entrenched now.
Nepal is a rocky country, having a large patch of lands unsuitable for farming. People in the rulal area are literally one of the poorest population in the world.
Paper bush ("Mitsumata") grows well in such a rocky soil. This program is essentially an attempt to set up Japan as a longterm buyer of the material, so that the local people can make constant money.
> Why not locally sourced?
Because if Japan sourced the material locally, it just ceased to be a foreign assistance program.
In 2019, 146.7M vs 129.0M from the U.S.
Lots of Japanese people travel to Nepal to volunteer in schools and clinics and stuff; when living in Japan I knew several different people who'd done that sort of thing. It's like U.S. doctors and contractors doing projects in Central America. Japan is very into building soft power in SEA through development assistance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote
Having handled a fair amount of US currency I can say it _feels_ disgusting to handle after a certain amount of wear and often reminds me of a moist tissue. It also doesn't help that visually the notes all look very similar (as opposed to on polymer notes which have significantly different appearances and colours)
I don’t know if there are actually any studies but fyi cotton notes will also have plastic features and a synthetic, uv cured varnish to try and get some extra life (although far less than polymer) so also ’shed’. Banknotes are regularly inspected and worn or damaged notes are pulled - they really are the perfect product for plastic.
Plastic = bad is a disaster for co2 emissions and ironically microplastics since the alternatives are heavier and don’t last as long. Meaning more transport, distribution etc and tires are one of the biggest sources of microplastics.
Show me anyone who is actually 'concerned' about that with numbers to back up that there is any significance.
What did you think this was evidence of?
They don't care where it comes from.
The point being - is money one?
Why be so dismissive?
Because there is zero evidence of what you're saying. How much plastic are people surrounded by and how much of that weight is bank notes? How much do they shed? Show some numbers or just use some common sense that this doesn't matter.
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-tool-household-plastics-footpr...
A polymer bank note weighs 0.7g
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/banknotes/...
If you have 10 bank notes in your wallet, you have 162,285 times as much plastic in your house.
I think most people would have had used some basic common sense that even their trash bags are many times more plastic than the polymer bank notes they use.
Why did you possibly think that anyone should be focused on microplastics from bank notes?
At what point do you go from "just asking questions" to "maybe this is a bizarre thing to focus on" ?
It's called plastic money by the way, not polymer money.
If you go to a country where they use these, they call them polymer notes.
They are made from a polymer and people that use them call them polymer notes. That's a decent amount of evidence compared to your no evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJTLCmIW1rA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BD1xX7c1Jg
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=polymer+banknot...
Polymer cups are also made from synthetic polymers like polypropylene. So are polymer knives and polymer forks.
I don't know what else to tell you. You said it's not called polymer money, I showed you a lot of evidence that it is.
Not a euphemism. They're made out of polymer. This is pretty direct.
you don't have to accept if you find polymer cups ridiculous
I don't and I don't know why anyone would be upset over that.
You said they aren't called polymer notes, I showed you they are called polymer notes by linking evidence. What else is there? Are you still saying they aren't called that or does it just upset you for some reason? You can hate it but it's still true.
Very interesting organization of Australias, and wish we had something like it in the US.
From an environmental standpoint all banknotes should be shredded and burned and everyone should use contactless means of payment.
Edit: While true that's maybe not a good argument. Financial processing hardly is the biggest culprit. The worst impact / benefit ratio are probably video and ad distribution.
However, if you think how much Chinese (and similar) goods a $20 or 50€ note buys during its lifetime the impact of shipping the banknote material seems negligible.
Are you sure it is more environmental to keep all the computers, the network and other related infrastructure running (powered on, security updated, etc.) than it is to print and distribute banknotes every so many years and associated costs with that?
Like 99% of physical payments are already involves computers anyway, even if it is done with a paper/plastic note.
So it's not "replace notes with computers" but "get rid of notes because computers are there anyway".
Anecdote: I don't have a card linked to Uber, so I pay with a cash or a C2C transfer. In the last two years if I ask the driver if they prefer cash or C2C they consistently prefer C2C - because it's way less hassle for them and also they often claim they are short on change.
And in the another anecdote I still carry cash on me but I use it only for a taxi rides and a one local smallware shop, so they wouldn't need to pay the processing fee for the 50c things.