I do disagree with this one - I’ll get some sources to back this up, but the environmental processing cost of recycling a metal, is far far higher than that to recycle plastic. (Or incinerate waste to create energy).
The debate there is somewhat similar to the Glass vs Plastic bottle arguement - Glass has an all round higher carbon foot print, because it is much harder to process and recycle than plastic.
I did some number crunching before on CO2 used in plastic vs metal manufacturing (link) - it’s about 3 times more carbon intensive to make the metal for a metal card than the plastic for a plastic one, purely based on raw materials (inlcluding the current market average for reclycled material streams).
So you’d have to get your current card to last 3x longer than a plastic one. Maybe thats feasible, I don’t know, but I imagine a 4.5 - 6 years on a single card is hard, and opens up more opportunities for the card to be lost/damaged/stolen in that time too? (i.e. a greater portion of plastic card users will see their card to it’s natural expiry, than metal, due to additional time to risk loss, etc).
When it comes to recylcing streams too for this material; again basing this on Plastic bottles - implmenting a circular economy is really hard, and for metals I would honestly expect that Banks and card manufacturers are a small voice when it comes to the advocating for that.
And honestly, right now recycling of metal is pretty good - in the UK Stainless steel is comprised of approx 80% recovered / recycled material. (source - page 6)
In short the environmental sell is not super clear cut, tbh. A more environmental approach is a non-contactless plastic card, that can be recycled in current plastic waste streams, and using mobile payments.
Just to add some additioncal context for specific materials:
CO2 emissions in producing plastic:
- Recycled - 0.5kg per 1kg of plastic.
- Virgin Plastic - 1.5kg per 1kg of plastic
(for Polypropelyne, fairly common consumer grade plastic)
source - search for CO2
In the UK, the recycling rate of consumer grade plastic is about 45% (source - page 15).
could go on about this for ages, but plastics tend to get ‘downcycled’ - food contact material is hard to get fully recycled, and is likely the “best grade” of plastic, and would get down cycled into less good grades. E.g. Clear drinks bottle > Detergent bottle > plastic tray > plastics for industrial uses, etc.
For Stainless steel:
CO2 emissions in producing:
- Recycled, with current rates of scrap steeel - 2.91 tonnes per 1 tonne of finished material
- “Virgin” - with 0% scrap steel - ~4.91 tonnes / 1 tonne of Steel.
- The raw material process cost - of producing steel is about 1.91 tonnes / 1 tonne steel, currently, and that is with the current 80/20 recylcing rate.
- source - page 7 onwards