The Greener Way to Pay

It takes an enormous quantity of energy to print, transport, count and sort the dollar bills in your wallet. The U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving cranks out $750 million in new currency each day, trucking the paper from its Massachusetts manufacturing plant to be printed in Washington and then to secret distribution points, where it's held before it's carted off to banks. When you pay with a credit or debit card, in contrast, all you're doing is moving electrons, as e-money moves between accounts—so it has to be the greener alternative, right? Not so fast.

Credit and debit cards are made using six different kinds of plastic. They're laminated and embossed to make them slick enough to slide through card readers. There are more than 2 billion cards in America alone—and each will take decades to fully biodegrade after it expires, gets shredded and buried in a landfill. The machines and servers that track card spending all run on electricity, most of it generated by burning carbon-rich coal. And even in an age of electronic bill payment, at the end of the month most credit-card customers still receive paper statements, sent through the U.S. mail, and many still write a check to pay the bill and then mail it back. That kicks off an entirely different energy-intensive process, as the banks route and process those paper checks.

Cash has other advantages. It's made mostly from cotton and linen—both of which, when harvested, emit less carbon than cutting trees. Once bills get printed, they stay in circulation for up to five years, on average. As its color suggests, it is the greener alternative when it comes to payment methods. The fact that it won't put you at risk for experiencing your own personal credit crisis is just icing on the cake.

© 2008