I have seen that one of your competitors offers a biodegradable MasterCard, why can’t Monzo? With the 10’s of thousands of cards you send out each month that all adds up to alot of plastic and a big impact on the environment. It would make sense to reduce the impact of all of these plastic cards by making them biodegradable. It’s for the planet!
Who’s doing biodegradable?
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Pretty sure the council would have burnt my card long before it got the chance to biodegrade
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I think biodegradable may be more of a marketing ploy than something that’s genuinely good for the environment. The whole manufacturing process isn’t environmentally friendly.
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I presume you mean like this.
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I had one prior to switching to Monzo. Excellent quality card too, might kill two birds with one stone by resolving some of the card quality issues. Can’t remember who manufactured it though.
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For previous discussion (and interest) in this, see also:
Problem with current consumer “biodegradable” products, like coffee cup lids and other plastics, is that they are only really biodegradable in a commercial setting. The temperature and pressure of typical composting doesn’t get there, so it’s just a type of green washing.
Plastic in and of itself is not a bad thing - it has it’s genuine uses.
Until we focus better recycling streams, and critically improving recycling rates, along with reducing genuinely unnecessary plastic use, we are a long way off from “make bank cards out of something else”.
Like absolutely focus on a more energy efficient operation but I feel like going down the card route is a very small area of focus
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The problem with most bank cards is that they’re made out of PVC which cannot (typically) be put in home recycling. Switching bank cards to a plastic that can go in the home plastic recycling would definitely make a difference.
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Hmm, so I’m not convinced by the claims people using these bio plastics are making.
Yes PLA is a type of plant based plastic (or rather, there are plant sources for it, which is true of other plastic types too).
That said the yield of converting corn > plastic is not ideal, so you’re spending more energy on growing corn - it is early tech though and it’s expected these technologies will eventually move to bio waste. I imagine the calculation of energy use isn’t looking at the raw material stage. Eventually it will become more efficient but the technology isn’t there yet.
Final point though, is generally these types of “bio” plastics only properly biodegrade in commercial/industrial settings - you cannot throw these into you compost bin and get these to decompose, nor can you put them in the food waste bin - as they don’t decompose in the same way/conditions as food.
And that’s ignoring the fact that a card is a laminated/composite material which increases difficulty in recycling anyway.
The tree planting is nice though, but I think the other statements are maybe implying greater green credentials than are true
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Read that from last May, thought of this from today:
Back on topic, whatever one thinks of the biggest banks they have the resources and sheer mass to clear some of the technical hurdles for others, drive down costs, drive up supplies paths and effect immediate large scale change. So for that I commend them and look forward to my future replacement cards from them being a little less bad for the world
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If everyone thought like this then the planet be in an even worse state.
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I don’t understand the obsession with biodegradable cards. I have had the same Monzo card for years now and I have gone through substantial amounts of other plastics in that time, mostly from packaging.
So the amount of plastic in a bank card is negligible.
This negligible amount of plastic can be reduced further by not throwing it in the bin, I have bank cards from decades ago in my bedside draw that are not doing any damage to the environment right now.
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Personally I would love Monzo to publish some form of sustainability goal / objective / policy or whatever they are called.
I think Plastic Cards are a similar argument to Plastic Straws; a very focused ‘thing’ that is only a very small drop in the ocean compared to bigger, wider, more solveable problems.
Don’t get me wrong, I think every action to either reduce plastic use, or increase recycling rates of plastic should be pushed (circular economy please!) - (although non-plastic straws aren’t a perfect solution either but that’s a different topic).
But I think that’s also a very small part of what’s “consumer friendly” when it comes to Sustainability initiatives; sure, make the cards from heavy duty paper, but if your data processing centres are chugging out 10x more carbon in heat, then I’d rather you solve that first.
Which is why I really like the transparency behind companies carbon footprints and other sustainability reports.
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Most people do, but there’s still going to be cards for every new person and then a rolling 4 year cycle to replace them as they expire. That’s millions and millions. That’s ignoring those that upgrade/downgrade/lose cards.
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Don’t forget all those people who replace their cards weekly (for all sorts of absurd reasons) as pointed out by staff in another topic.
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I think this would be the best option rather than questionable card materials.
Simply not giving a card until one is requested makes a whole lot of sense. I think Revolut already do this? They don’t shout about it though from an environmental point of view.
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