What Makes Polymer Banknotes Green?

For many people, their perception of plastic is negative. Plastic is one of the world’s ‘bad guys’ these days, with newspaper headlines and TV programmes dominated by images of polluted oceans or mountainous garbage dumps. But, as always, the truth is more nuanced than the ‘all plastic is bad’ trope might have you believe.

Certainly, our society faces major challenges caused by pollution, and some plastics play a large role in those challenges. But in the banknote industry, extensive and in-depth research studies carried out by central banks around the world all come to the same, evidence-based and data-driven conclusion: polymer banknotes are greener than paper alternatives.

To understand why, you have to look at the whole life cycle of a polymer banknote. The five key stages of any banknote life are substrate production, transportation to the printworks, printing, circulation, and end of life. These elements all have to be taken into account as part of a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). In other words, we need to look at banknotes with a 360° perspective, including how they interact with the cash cycle as a whole.