back to article New plastic banknote plans now upsetting environmental campaigners

First it was vegetarians and vegans complaining about plastic banknotes. Now the Bank of England has managed to upset environmentalists at the WWF – wildlife, not wrestlers – over plans for new plastic £20 notes made using palm oil. In a public consultation on its website, the bank says that after the furore over less than one …

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  1. John Styles

    Roadkill badgers

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Dolphins and polar bear cubs

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Politicians

      1. Steven Raith

        If we use politicians, then for once I'd support quantitative easing.

        More meat for the grinder, eh?

        Steven R

        1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

          If we use politicians, then for once I'd support quantitative easing.

          Do you really want to have that in your hands? Ugh..

          :)

    3. Timmy B

      RE: Roadkill badgers

      You know that's not a bad idea. They are fatty beasts and if all the fivers use just the tallow from one cow then three or four badgers will do it - that's just a couple of hours looking in the roads near me.

      The only issue is that as badgers are protected and possession of any part of them is illegal under the protection of badgers act: "A person is guilty of an offence if, except as permitted by or under this Act, he has in his possession or under his control any dead badger or any part of, or anything derived from, a dead badger."

      So, perhaps not, shame as there would be some point to all the loss on the roads.

      1. TimB

        Re: RE: Roadkill badgers

        My shaving brush is made from badger. I'd better hand myself in.

        1. Timmy B

          Re: RE: Roadkill badgers

          "My shaving brush is made from badger. I'd better hand myself in." Probably not. Most say this but are actually something like horse.

      2. ZillaOfManilla

        Re: RE: Roadkill badgers

        However it would coincide with annual Badger Cullhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/16/badger-cull-kills-more-than-10000-animals-three-months-bovine-tb

        Mr May might not be happy though. https://youtu.be/5cIlr-LcFsI?t=1m

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: RE: Roadkill badgers

        "A person is guilty of an offence if, except as permitted by or under this Act, he has in his possession or under his control any dead badger or any part of, or anything derived from, a dead badger."

        I'd better hide my hat, then, it's obviously a badger

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: RE: Roadkill badgers

          But... it WOULD make for an interesting DNA based anti-forgery mechanism. Use swan fat. There's a royal connection for you.

  2. John Styles

    One of the 3 Brexit minsters - surely we don't need Johnson, Davis and Disgraced. They can draw straws.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      FFS. Give it a rest.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "FFS. Give it a rest."

        Didn't you get the memo? Endless whinging, sobbing and moaning on social media is the Millennial version of political engagement.

        1. John Styles

          Millenial, I wish. Generation X here. No stupid beards and no enormous houses bought for 10 grand.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Oleaginous

      Render down Boris's jowls?

      1. Bloodbeastterror

        Re: Oleaginous

        "Render down Boris's jowls?"

        No, Render down Boris. There should be enough flubber in there for the entire run.

    3. BarryUK

      I imagine Boris could provide a similar amount of Tallow to one cow, so problem solved.

    4. Chris King

      SOYLENT STIRLING IS BORIS !

      That would be one way of ensuring that nobody ever handles the notes without using tongs and/or thick rubber gloves. You wouldn't want to get that sort of stupidity on you !

    5. Number6

      The Brexit stuff will hopefully be over in a couple of years, then you can ditch all of them.

  3. Jeroen Braamhaar
    Facepalm

    best solution!

    Render down all the protesters.

    1. swampdog
      Alien

      Re: best solution!

      Seems like a plan; after all, these moaners must be very boney. They obviously can't use plastic because I bet there's enough ingredients in a credit card to make both camps apoplectic. Tap 'n' bonk is obviously out for the same reason. Keeping with linen implies cotton and we can't be allowed to think "plantation". Metal money has all the old fashioned industrial baggage so it does beg the question..

      These people can't have reproduced in order to be here today. Logically, they must have had their minds altered since birth because otherwise it requires holding a contradictory life view. No sane person would do that. Thus they are either mad (so off to the loony bin with them) or they've had their minds tampered with by aliens.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: best solution!

        "Keeping with linen implies cotton"

        It implies linen. Different plant, different part of plant, different biochemistry.

        1. swampdog

          Re: best solution!

          My bad. Still implies "plantation" though. ;-)

      2. gandalfcn Silver badge

        Re: best solution!

        swampdog

        I suggest you spend some time in Indonesia, before the natural habitat is totally destroyed, before gobbing of bile and untruths.

        1. Brenda McViking

          Re: best solution!

          I've been there. And Malaysia, and yeah, there isn't much natural habitat left. Then again we can talk - UK forest was systematically destroyed to the point that it is today in our quest to industrialise.

          Another 6 hectares for UK banknote production (read the consulation, that's all they'll need) won't make a blind bit of difference either way. This whole tallow thing is Parkinsons law of tiviality (the bike-sheds at a nuclear power plant argument) on steroids.

          I've submitted my response to the consultation saying as such. I had no idea there was even a Jain network in Great Britain, let alone the fact that a religion compromising 0.039% of the population should force a change of Bank of England industrial processes. How about they stop using everything made of or utilising polypropylene before they start weighing in on the debate? Relgion is a lifestyle choice, just like using contactless. And the vegetarians soon shut up once they realise their home-cooked meal contains more human flesh in parts per million than banknotes contain tallow, because they were stood sweating and moulting and flaking over it whilst they were cooking.

          Then there is the fact that this costs for making this entire argument and collecting responses is coming out of profits which otherwise go to the taxpayer.

          1. Pompous Git Silver badge

            Re: best solution!

            "And the vegetarians soon shut up once they realise their home-cooked meal contains more human flesh in parts per million than banknotes contain tallow, because they were stood sweating and moulting and flaking over it whilst they were cooking."
            Does their snot count too, or is that "just bacteria"?

          2. Sparkypatrick

            Re: best solution!

            The 25,000 Jains had grounds for complaint, but were hardly the voice that "[forced] a change of Bank of England industrial processes." Try considering the over 800,000 Hindus that consider cows sacred or the 2.7million Muslims that would require it to be Halal. Or if you don't care about people's religious sensibilities, how about the estimated 12% of the British population that are vegetarian or vegan?

            1. nijam Silver badge

              Re: best solution!

              > how about the estimated 12% of the British population that are vegetarian or vegan?

              Tell them not to eat banknotes.

            2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

              Re: best solution!

              AIUI, ICBW, the Bank of England took very, very seriously people's complaints about the £5 note, and then decided to go on making them out of beef anyway. Or perhaps to keep the ones that were already made. After all, they are valuable plastic, and replacing them all could cost as much as £50 (not each, total).

              I'm of the opinion that people's religious and moral feelings ought to be respected when they don't coincide with yours or are even quite stupid. That is simply what tolerance means.

              And I voted for UK to leave the EU but that doesn't mean I like Boris Johnson. What is more, I have been told he's not as stupid as he seems. Frankly I then asked for evidence of that and didn't get any, but it still seems to me possible that he works hard at pretending to be incompetent rather than openly vicious.

              1. Pompous Git Silver badge

                Re: best solution!

                "I'm of the opinion that people's religious and moral feelings ought to be respected when they don't coincide with yours or are even quite stupid. That is simply what tolerance means."
                Sounds good and up to a point I might even agree with you. Unfortunately, I suspect that there will be objectors to any lubricant you care to name. What then? No banknotes? How about tolerance of adherents to Daesh who appear to want to exterminate anyone who disagrees with their religion/philosophy?

                1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

                  Re:What then? No banknotes?

                  Why not stick with the paper (cotton) bank notes we've had since, oh, the end of big white fivers I duppose, and AIUI nobody minded them? Unlike these plastic whore notes. Apparently.

                  I take the point that religious tolerance is difficult to extend to the religious practice of exterminating unbelievers. The answer seems to be to require the tolerated religious people to not exterminate unbelievers just right now.

                  1. Pompous Git Silver badge

                    Re: Re:What then? No banknotes?

                    "Why not stick with the paper (cotton) bank notes we've had since, oh, the end of big white fivers I duppose, and AIUI nobody minded them? "
                    There you go! And I thought they were made from hemp paper from one of about one dozen mini-mills globally. They're mostly in Asia and the European Union and produce an estimated 120,000 tons of hemp paper a year. Most is used for cigarette papers, but a substantial percentage is added to art paper, paper for bibles* and hygiene products.

                    *The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed on moveable type almost six hundred years ago. It was printed on hemp paper.

          3. nijam Silver badge

            Re: best solution!

            > ... systematically destroyed to the point that it is today in our quest to industrialise

            Most of it went pre-industrialisation, to build a Navy's-worth of wooden ships, and of course all the other reasons - wood for fuel, wood for house-building, clearing space for inefficient agriculture, ...

            1. Pompous Git Silver badge

              Re: best solution!

              "Most of it [forest] went pre-industrialisation, to build a Navy's-worth of wooden ships, and of course all the other reasons - wood for fuel, wood for house-building, clearing space for inefficient agriculture, ..."
              You might be surprised by the amount that went in the Neolithic. It doesn't matter how efficient your agriculture is, it ain't going to happen without clearing the land of forest.

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: best solution!

                "You might be surprised by the amount that went in the Neolithic."

                Very little actually. Most clearance was well post-Neolithic.

            2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: best solution!

              "Most of it went pre-industrialisation"

              By and large, pre-industrial revolution, woodland was well managed for sustainability (except, of course, the word wasn't used). Coppicing made growth for fuel and material for small wooden items - implement handles, etc. - into a crop taken every few years. Felling for the navy could be a different matter but there was some panic planting of woodland for the sake of the navy just before iron ships came into being. There was also importation from the Baltic.

              The real killer was that with the replacement of wood as fuel and structural timber by coal and iron there was no need to manage woodland in the same way.

        2. swampdog

          Re: best solution!

          @gandalffcn

          You need to reset your irony, logic and humour chips. I dunno what triggered your accusation so I'm inclined to put you in the "render them all down" group: how that makes me responsible for lack of habitat escapes me!

      3. nijam Silver badge

        Re: best solution!

        > ... these moaners must be very boney.

        Except that most of them are fatheads.

  4. John 110
    Coat

    WWF

    Maybe the WWF are worried that they won't have enough oil to grease all those hunky wrestlers. They have to start rubbing them down with fivers...

    (I thought they did that anyway...)

    1. big_D Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: WWF

      WWF – wildlife, not wrestlers

      There is a difference?

      1. Captain Hogwash
        Joke

        Re: There is a difference?

        Met many wrestlers have you?

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: WWF

        Yes, there is. I can observe wildlife for hours and not get bored. Wrestlers, it's more in the low single digit millisecond range.

    2. Not also known as SC
      Mushroom

      Re: WWF

      Sinister how they haven't commented. Do you think the WWF (wrestlers) have something to hide?

      1. Steve the Cynic

        Re: WWF

        "Do you think the WWF (wrestlers) have something to hide?"

        Mostly that they haven't been the WWF since 2002... (Now called World Wrestling Entertainment, perhaps a better statement of their intentions, if not the results.)

  5. Kubla Cant

    Seeing a list of options starting "Palm Oil, Tallow..." reminds me of a system I once worked on. It was a billing system for storage of bulk liquids in the company's tank farm. Running "select * from products" was guaranteed to make you feel queasy. The results included palm oil and tallow, and much, much worse things.

    1. Steve the Cynic

      "much, much worse things"

      Chlorine triflouride?

      1. Steve the Cynic

        "triflouride"

        Argh. Can't spell. That should be "trifluoride".

        1. Glenturret Single Malt

          You are not alone. It must be the single most common chemical spelling error (based, anecdotally) on quite a number of years teaching the subject. Closely matched by "seperate".

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "reminds me of a system I once worked on."

      In my case it was reporting for an ice-cream etc. manufacturing plant. The one that got me was the item "Tiramisu tanks". They made tiramisu in tanks?

      Going on site required white coat and industrial steel-toecapped shoes. The white coat was no problem for an ex-scientist but they might have objected if they'd known where it had been previously. The shoes had to be bought but came in useful for years as gardening shoes but were universally referred to as the ice-cream factory shoes.

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