Cards beat cash in saving environment

Consumers can help save the environment by choosing card payments over cash, a study by the Dutch central bank claims.

The energy consumed by a debit-card transaction could light an 8-watt bulb for 90 minutes, compared with two hours using banknotes and coins, the researchers wrote. Their work is based on 2015 data from the Netherlands, where debit cards made up about 99% of all card transactions.