Pick Card Payments Over Cash and the Environment Will Thank You

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

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