Turning Cash into Compost

Last July, Currency News™ reported that BioBanknote, the developer of solutions for repurposing end of life banknotes, and the Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (BRCP) were conducting a composting test with the waste from banknotes withdrawn from circulation. This article provides the results of that trial.

The BCRP uses cotton paper for its banknotes, and unfit notes are destroyed by being shredded and converted into briquettes, and then generally taken to landfill dumps.

BioBanknote has developed some alternative procedures based on the principle of the circular economy that allows the waste from unfit banknotes to be used as an input in the production of organic fertilisers through composting processes. This procedure has already been successfully used by the Central Bank of Colombia, and led to a proposal to run a similar composting trial with the BRCP, which was carried out during 2023.

The trial was carried out in three parts: