The Greener Way to Spend.

Shopping for the holiday season can be so stressful, but what bothers me is how it stresses the environment even further. So before you buy that up to date iphone or those flashy high-end shoes, let’s take a look at the environmental impact of how you should pay for the items you intend to buy. Let’s dissect the ins and outs of paying through cash or through credit cards known as ‘plastics’.

Let’s take a look at the widely accepted cash or ‘paper bills’. It takes cosmic quantity of energy to print, transport, count and sort the bills we have in our wallet. The bills that are created consume a lot of fossil fuel, which is detrimental to our environment. On the other hand, credit and debit cards, which we love to swipe in ‘zon machines’, are made using six different kinds of plastic. They’re laminated and embossed to make them slick enough to slide through card readers. Currently there are plenty of credit/debit cards in the market and each will take years and years to fully biodegrade after each card has expired. On the other side of the fence, our paper bills are made of cotton and linen, when harvested emits less carbon than cutting trees. The impact doesn’t stop there. Once you swipe the card, of course you’re expected to pay, the bank will send a statement. The papers used for the statements come from trees thus increasing the demand for paper products pushing for indiscriminate cutting of trees. The process itself is already energy-intensive and would require a lot of fossil fuels being burnt. Not to mention the machines and servers that track the credit/debit cards are consuming electricity, which is generated by carbon-rich coal.

The convenience brought about by credit/debit cards is immense and eclipses the glory of having cash. Credit/debit cards make our transactions smoother and as a cardholder great reward is awaiting just by using your plastic, a frill-filled spending. Once you use your credit card, you will get your money’s worth by an extra mile through rewards and points. Using cash on the other hand makes your transaction a no-frill activity and limits you from getting those returns.

As a shopper, it’s a matter of choice - a choice between protecting the environment and spending wisely. So if you really want to swipe that card of yours, then be responsible in making up for the lost energy by planting a tree for example. By swiping our credit cards, let’s be extra conscientious in helping our environment. After all, saving our environment requires neither cash nor credit card. All it requires is our awareness by thinking green.