Credit Card Made from Paper: An Environmental Wow

Credit Card Made from Paper: An Environmental Wow

22 July | Delhi | The Pulp and Paper Times:

These days plastic cards have become the necessity of the human globally. Easy to carry, Millions of financial transactions are being performed thru Credit Cards, Every Day millions of expired cards are polluting our environment because of plastic, which is a main raw material for card manufacturing. 

These cards are good for the transactions but due to non-biodegradable nature, these cards remain long last to get degraded which is not environment-friendly. According to an estimation approximately 2000 million people in the world are using plastic cards and a cardholder may be using multiple cards for his various requirements like credit card, debit cards, membership card, room key cards, driving license, voter id cards, adhaar card, children school id cards, employee id cards, Metro Train Card, PAN Card and many more.

Statistically say, approximately, Every year plastic cards of total carrying weight 50,000 MT  to 1,00,000 MT are being sold in an increasing manner. A similar amount of plastic cards in weight is getting converted into plastic waste. And it seems difficult to reprocess or recycle the damage, destroy and thrown plastic cards. 

The time has come up to think about Paper-based card for various transactions. Paper is by nature biodegradable and less cost-effective and imparts no adverse impact on the environment.

“Yes, Paper-based credit card can be made if big suppliers such as VISA, MasterCard and others allow. To make paper-based credit card, a special credit card making machine is required and paper must adhere to the plastic card properties such as re-usability and machine readability like holding the magnetic tape and secure chip insertion. It should be free from easy wear out.” Explained by Mr.D.Indrajith (In below picture), Director of Rhanos Private Limited, a manufacturer of plastic cards.

"In USA, paper-based reusable cards are in trend which have short term uses such as metro train travelling (Metro Card in Above Picture), Mr.Indrajith told.

A credit card has a life of a maximum of 5 years in general after that card is required to replace by a new one. As the paper is less costly than plastic, in this case, paper cards can be made and used for a short tenure

According to data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the number of RuPay cards in circulation also grew, having reached 494 million in the financial year 2018 up 35% against 365 million in the previous year. 

All the debit cards in the country on ATMs are routed/processed by NPCI’s National Financial Network. For this, Banks have to pay a fee to NPCI. All the Visa and Master Card (MC) debit cards used on Point of Sale (POS) and E-commerce are routed/processed by Visa and Master Card. Credit Cards of Indian banks are processed on ATMs, POS and E-commerce by Visa/MC. Banks pay fee to Visa/MC. 

How Plastic Cards are made:

Cards are made of several layers of plastic laminated together. The core is commonly made from a plastic resin known as polyvinyl chloride acetate (PVCA). This resin is mixed with opacifying materials, dyes, and plasticizers to give it the proper appearance and consistency. This core material is laminated with thin layers of PVCA or clear plastic materials. These laminates will adhere to the core when applied with pressure and heat.

A variety of inks or dyes are also used for printing credit cards. These are available in a variety of colours and are designed for use on plastic substrates. Some manufacturers use special magnetic inks to print the magnetic stripe on the back of the card. The inks are made by dispersing metal oxide particles in the appropriate solvents. Additional special printing processes are involved for cards, like VISA, which features holograms.

Credit Card Companies | Largest Issuers (2019 List)

Visa — 781M Cardholders

MasterCard — 654M Cardholders

RuPay – 494M Cardholders

Chase — 93M Cardholders

American Express — 58M Cardholders

Discover — 57M Cardholders

Citibank — 48M Cardholders

Capital One — 45M Cardholders

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