Bitcoin is wasting electricity and are harmful to the environment.. Yea right!!!
So, we all know everyone is going on and on about Bitcoin mining wasting lots of electricity and how this is harmful to the environment, but have we ever considered how harmful other payment methods are?
Visa and MasterCard have about 65 million customers and we also have debit cards from Banks and also other payment cards like American Express and Diners Club etc. A lot of these cards are replaced once every year and it is made from material that are very harmful to the environment.
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. - Source : http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Credit-Card.html
The average American has 2 to 3 credit cards and there were 304 million Visa credit cards in circulation in the United States and 545 million Visa credit cards in circulation outside of the United States in September 2014. Source : https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/market-share-statistics.php
There are about 189 million Americans adults with at least one credit card.
In Q4 <2014> cards in circulation looked like this :
Citigroup - 109,774,131
JPMorgan - 93,847,656
Bank of America - 79,822,686
Capital One - 63,194,228
American Express - 54,900,000
Discover - 43,630,772
Synchrony - 31,030,786
Wells Fargo - 24,271,107
Barclays Delaware Holdings - 16,156,368
U.S. Bancorp - 14,440,681
So, looking at some of the statistics and considering that those cards must be manufactured with the use of electricity and also destroyed and ending up in landfills, then I would say Bitcoin's carbon footprint must be minuscule compared to this industry.
Feel free to add some updated statistics and also a graphical presentation of what those millions of cards would look like, if you had them all together. We would circle the earth a couple of times, if we had all the cards that were manufactured, since it was introduced many years ago.
Visa and MasterCard have about 65 million customers and we also have debit cards from Banks and also other payment cards like American Express and Diners Club etc. A lot of these cards are replaced once every year and it is made from material that are very harmful to the environment.
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. - Source : http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Credit-Card.html
The average American has 2 to 3 credit cards and there were 304 million Visa credit cards in circulation in the United States and 545 million Visa credit cards in circulation outside of the United States in September 2014. Source : https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/market-share-statistics.php
There are about 189 million Americans adults with at least one credit card.
In Q4 <2014> cards in circulation looked like this :
Citigroup - 109,774,131
JPMorgan - 93,847,656
Bank of America - 79,822,686
Capital One - 63,194,228
American Express - 54,900,000
Discover - 43,630,772
Synchrony - 31,030,786
Wells Fargo - 24,271,107
Barclays Delaware Holdings - 16,156,368
U.S. Bancorp - 14,440,681
So, looking at some of the statistics and considering that those cards must be manufactured with the use of electricity and also destroyed and ending up in landfills, then I would say Bitcoin's carbon footprint must be minuscule compared to this industry.
Feel free to add some updated statistics and also a graphical presentation of what those millions of cards would look like, if you had them all together. We would circle the earth a couple of times, if we had all the cards that were manufactured, since it was introduced many years ago.