Plastic free credit cards | Ep. #65

<p>India is bustling with the festival season at this time of the year and Piyush noticed a dilemma recently when his family exchanged gift cards instead of sweets because each of those gift cards is single-use in nature and are made out of plastic.</p> <p>Just imagine the pace at which most humans have evolved their buying habits..transaction habits from exchanging cash, three decades ago to credit/debit cards and now mobile wallets/g-pay/Paytm / QR codes etc.</p> <p>For many people, using credit cards has been a convenient way of payment until recently. But the new-age consumer, following the penetration of mobile technology into almost every market, views cards as plastic clutter that makes the wallet bulky.</p> <p>6 billion payment cards are manufactured every year around the world; Very few of which are recycled cards! The amount of plastic used to produce banking cards every year is equivalent to the weight of 150 Boeing 747s.</p> <p>These cards are replaced every few years, and the 5.7 million tons of plastic, in the form of these cards, end up in landfills.</p> <p>It is commonly forgotten ..maybe at times ignored knowledge that our payment cards, debit or credit cards, loyalty cards, gift cards, shopping cards or any other, are made of non-degradable synthetic plastic, which uses raw material from the oil &amp; gas industry.</p> <p>This is why developing a life cycle strategy for an eco-friendly card or cardless transaction involves a global approach in which banks have to choose the right raw materials, technology, processes, and products to achieve a substantial reduction in negative environmental impacts such as energy consumption, carbon footprint, and plastic waste.</p> <p>So what are the solutions here: Recycled plastic cards, Bioplastic cards etc. are an option, however till the time we have a hard product in our hand, its end of life will always be a point of concern.</p> <p>That’s where a recent <a href="https://www.infosys.com/industries/cards-and-payments/resources/Documents/goodbye-plastic.pdf