Cash vs. Plastic

I am of a certain generation. When I say that, I’m ‘Talking about my Generation’ we weren’t supposed to trust anyone over 30. This attitude was developed long before the pervasiveness of computers and before massive data mining of our daily activities was a reality. So, for me, it is difficult to square this 1960’s philosophy with early 21st Century reality. At the same time, I now find myself well over 30 and the attitudes of the 60’s can only take me so far. But, old habits die hard. For example, I resisted signing up for Mass Pike transponders because of this attitude, much to the amusement of my younger colleagues. Why should the DMV know when and where I go, and tangentially, at what speed? I’ve discovered a natural distrust of ‘the man’ manifesting in the ever-increasingly electronic world. I recently learned that New York City is using transponders not only to collect tolls but also track vehicle movement in and around the city – is this too much information gathering?

Beyond civil liberty issues I wonder; is our electronic world as transparent as we think? Asking paper or plastic at the super market is a fairly simple question for some of us. But what about cash or credit? Increasingly we whip out the plastic – it’s convenient, but in a data mining world do I want this purchase in my personal profile? What of all the downstream consequences? I, for one, find myself using cash more than I did a couple of years ago for this very reason. Is this just paranoia or a more sustainable approach? Data mining takes up an incredible amount of energy. Just think of all those transactions constantly being backed up and stored in some data farm, by some estimates 3 million an hour, only to be sold to a marketing organization that wants to send targeted electronic ads that require even more energy (as discussed in What is the carbon footprint of a Tweet?). Is cash, in the long, run more sustainable than plastic? The cash transaction can be paperless if no receipt is required and the record of it will not be endlessly stored electronically. It will also not trigger additional downstream personalized marketing. Or do you like all those customized ads popping up on your computer and phone? They are certainly missing the mark with me.

What about the cost of printing money? The Federal Reserve has budgeted about $718 Million to print the country’s currency in 2015. On the other hand, the advertising industry in the USA is projected to spend approximately $189 Billion in 2015. It is unclear what percentage of those marketing dollars are a direct result of data mining your “profile,” but even less than 1% is still more than the Federal Reserve spends keeping us in greenbacks.

We live in an ever increasingly connected society. Electronic transactions and interfaces have greater downstream implications these days when it comes to energy use. Those transactions are a convenience that is never free or particularly transparent. Clearly there are benefits to electronic banking, and buying stuff on the internet that make our lives easier, and not everything can be a cash transaction but we are subject to a carbon tax of sorts on the commercialization of your daily life. Getting a handle on your personal carbon footprint is near impossible but looking at it in slices helps one make personal choices no matter how small (as discussed in Cow vs GTI). So, next time when you blithely interface with the electronic world consider the hidden implications of plastic versus cash. Paying cash may be green in more ways than one.