[wenyuanyu]

Sourcing the raw material of bank notes from Nepal? Seems a bit off from an environmental standpoint by hauling materials halfway across the globe from Himalaya.

How about plastic notes? They are durable, recyclable, and because they are money, not likely to end up in our oceans as wastes.

[bsza]

It’s not halfway across the globe. Not even quarter way. Meanwhile, the US one dollar note is made with flax imported from Belgium (also not halfway across the globe, but farther away).

[wenyuanyu]

No, they are not flying non-stop from Himalaya as you assume. I did a rough calculation using [0][1]. Not including the land part, just the sea route, it is 5396 nm [0], roughly 9993 km and that is indeed halfway the globe.

By the way, from Antwerp, Belgium to Boston, MA is 3607 nm, roughly 6680 km, much shorter actually.

- [0] http://ports.com/sea-route/#/?a=4063&b=4693&c=Port%20of%20Ko... - [1] http://ports.com/sea-route/#/?a=3042&b=682&c=Port%20of%20Ant...

[OisinMoran]

That is roughly a quarter the way around the globe

[hifromwork]

Not a native speaker, but this got me thinking: how would you interpret "halfway" in this sentence:

>It’s not halfway across the globe

Equator is 40k km long, so it makes sense getting "halfway" there would be 20k km. But the "half" is of something, and it doesn't sound right that "at the end of the globe" would be the same place you started with. Especially since being "on the other end of the world" means roughly, well, opposite side of the globe.

So I think OP is justified in defining "across the globe" as the "opposite side of the world", and then "halfway across the globe" is "quarter the length of equator away". But maybe I'm overthinking it.

[wryoak]

As a native speaker: I think “across” (while understandable from context) is the wrong preposition because to me that would imply a diametric traversal, not circumspect, eg, halfway across would land you in the core of the earth. Half way around is what I would say to describe superficial travel of half the earth’s circumference, landing at the opposite side of the world.

[OisinMoran]

This is a very fair point! Another way they could be given credit is that the radius of the earth (another way to view "halfway across the globe") is 6371km so again the quoted distance would be more than this half.

[wenyuanyu]

Thanks for explaining! Yeah.. I was thinking of the maximum direct surface distance when saying "across the globe"... That would be 20k km... and the sea route turns to be about 10K km long from Kolkata to Osaka...

[Cthulhu_]

Why not locally sourced? I mean it's very possible flax isn't native to the Americas but it seems wasteful to source something from abroad.

And while 100+ years ago it made sense from a logistics point of view - use hard to find materials to fight counterfeiting - I don't believe that's a valid argument anymore.

[cloudbonsai]

This thread is grossly missing the point. OP is writing about a foreign aid program directed at Nepali people.

Nepal is a rocky country, having a large patch of lands unsuitable for farming. People in the rulal area are literally one of the poorest population in the world.

Paper bush ("Mitsumata") grows well in such a rocky soil. This program is essentially an attempt to set up Japan as a longterm buyer of the material, so that the local people can make constant money.

> Why not locally sourced?

Because if Japan sourced the material locally, it just ceased to be a foreign assistance program.

[kragen]

i don't know if it's intended as a foreign aid program, but if it is, it's a foreign aid program whose budget amounts to a single google engineer's salary, so i'd think japan could do better

[livueta]

I mean, it's just one program out of many. Japan is the largest bilateral national contributor to foreign aid to Nepal: https://www.foreignassistance.gov/cd/nepal/current/obligatio... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid_to_Nepal

In 2019, 146.7M vs 129.0M from the U.S.

Lots of Japanese people travel to Nepal to volunteer in schools and clinics and stuff; when living in Japan I knew several different people who'd done that sort of thing. It's like U.S. doctors and contractors doing projects in Central America. Japan is very into building soft power in SEA through development assistance.

[Luc]

It's a difficult low margin crop. Not easy to grow cheaply and it needs to be processed to extract the fibers.

It's been grown in that part of Europe for thousands of years and in the 19th century it was a major industry there. I don't think it's still a major crop in Belgium (too low margin) but the company in question is entrenched now.

[hx833001]

The US dollar is only 25% linen, 75% cotton.

[MildlySerious]

Plastic doesn't seem like a good solution, considering that notes are moved, stretched, flexed a lot and endure a lot of friction. Seems like a needless source for more plastic particles shedding into the environment.

[a5withtrrs]

You might be surprised to learn that a lot of the world uses polymer banknotes which are siignificantly more durable and last a lot longer than traditional 'paper' based currencies. The are incredibly hard to tear/break and they do not wear out or stretch. We've been using these in Australia since 1996.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote

Having handled a fair amount of US currency I can say it _feels_ disgusting to handle after a certain amount of wear and often reminds me of a moist tissue. It also doesn't help that visually the notes all look very similar (as opposed to on polymer notes which have significantly different appearances and colours)

[MildlySerious]

I'm aware it's being done already. But I'm not sure it would be a good starting point when designing a new set of notes. Euro banknotes are mostly made from cotton, and a lot of thought and effort is going into reducing the environmental footprint. The most circulated denominations last on average four years, the rest significantly longer I presume. How does that compare to polymer based banknotes?

[1jbdg]

In Canada they last 8-16 years… polymer notes are unequivocally better. Corruption and inertia is the only reason they are not everywhere. As to plastic pollution, banknotes are already a closed, circular loop and hence you get the miracle properties of plastic without the downside.

[pests]

I think the concern was with the plastic money shedding micro plastics or threads as it slowly degrades over time, like we're finding other plastic does like our clothing. Not saying enough to take out of circulation, but does it shed any particles during its life?

[1jbdg]

Does it shed particles? In a world of absolutism yes they would.

I don’t know if there are actually any studies but fyi cotton notes will also have plastic features and a synthetic, uv cured varnish to try and get some extra life (although far less than polymer) so also ’shed’. Banknotes are regularly inspected and worn or damaged notes are pulled - they really are the perfect product for plastic.

[CyberDildonics]

I think the concern was with the plastic money shedding micro plastics

Show me anyone who is actually 'concerned' about that with numbers to back up that there is any significance.

[codersfocus]

The national institution that made them (CSIRO) also held the patent on WiFi. Among many other inventions.

Very interesting organization of Australias, and wish we had something like it in the US.

[hoseja]

Japan has a long tradition of advanced papermaking.

[justsomehnguy]

> from an environmental standpoint

From an environmental standpoint all banknotes should be shredded and burned and everyone should use contactless means of payment.

[usr1106]

I doubt that. Computing has a greenhouse effect similar to air traffic.

Edit: While true that's maybe not a good argument. Financial processing hardly is the biggest culprit. The worst impact / benefit ratio are probably video and ad distribution.

However, if you think how much Chinese (and similar) goods a $20 or 50€ note buys during its lifetime the impact of shipping the banknote material seems negligible.

[themaninthedark]

Why?

Are you sure it is more environmental to keep all the computers, the network and other related infrastructure running (powered on, security updated, etc.) than it is to print and distribute banknotes every so many years and associated costs with that?

[justsomehnguy]

Because we already keep all the computers, the network and payment processing anyway.

Like 99% of physical payments are already involves computers anyway, even if it is done with a paper/plastic note.

So it's not "replace notes with computers" but "get rid of notes because computers are there anyway".

Anecdote: I don't have a card linked to Uber, so I pay with a cash or a C2C transfer. In the last two years if I ask the driver if they prefer cash or C2C they consistently prefer C2C - because it's way less hassle for them and also they often claim they are short on change.

And in the another anecdote I still carry cash on me but I use it only for a taxi rides and a one local smallware shop, so they wouldn't need to pay the processing fee for the 50c things.

[a5withtrrs]

Sure. And we should do nothing but subsistence farming as well. But that's not really practical.

[ericfr11]

I agree. The impact (cost, energy...) is nothing compared to TikTok video streaming. Economy of scale

[pineaux]

Is this true tho?