Pakistan Proves Waste and Manure Combination as Answer to Banknote Destruction

As noted in the recently published special report ‘Cash: A Roadmap to Sustainability’, there is an environmental cost to the removal and disposal of banknote waste during production and at their end of life.

Polymer waste and banknotes are increasingly being recycled into industrial products. The same is happening to some banknotes too, although more traditionally they have either been incinerated or sent to landfill, which gets rid of the waste but also pollutes the environment. Composting, however, whereby a biochemical process transforms waste organic matter into ‘humus, is another option.

This is a route that some central banks and printworks have already taken. But, according to the Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC), no research has been done specifically on the identification of optimum parameters for banknote wastepaper composting and its environmental impact. PSPC is now undertaking that research, one project for which is a recently concluded composting experiment on waste shredded paper.