Story Archive

Cash Cows

The Bank of England has decided to leave its new 5-pound (US$6.25) notes in circulation, and will continue with the planned release of the new 10-pound Jane Austen notes in a few months. The decision was made in response to a petition to remove the new notes from circulation. The bills are made from a new polymer designed to make the bills last longer, but, as the Bank points out, “an extremely small amount of tallow” was used in early stages of producing the polymer pellets, resulting in trace amounts of animal fat in the bills. A petition with over 100,000 signatures noted that tallow was “unacceptable to millions of vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and others in the U.K.” The Bank is working with its polymer supplier to find an alternative formula for future printing, but it had already spent 70 million pounds (US$87.2 million) to print the currency. “Reprinting these notes on a new substrate would mean incurring these costs again,” the Bank said. “It would also require a further 50,000 pounds for the secure destruction of the existing stock.” A number of Sikhs and Hindus recommended banning the bills from temples, where meat products are prohibited. (MS/BBC) ...Steak houses, on the other hand, had no issues.