plastic £5 notes

Silly me has opened 2 threads on this subject and can't delete one of them!!

I'm a vegetarian and although not offended exactly I can't see why bank notes would have animal fat in them.

Tallow was used in candles in the olden days. The poor had tallow candles and the rich had wax candles.

"According to the website CrossroadsToday, the Bank of England, through a spokesperson, said that it only became aware recently that there was beef tallow in the banknote polymer, which it said was provided by a European company called Innovia Films.

CrossroadsToday also quoted a spokesperson for Innovia Films as confirming that there are “minute” traces of tallow in the company’s polymer, used to make the plastic substrate more “anti-static”.

The British £5 banknote uses Innovia Films’s Guardian polymer banknote substrate, which the company says is “currently issued on 80 denominations in 24 countries worldwide“,

so there are a lot of vegans world-wide, not just in the UK, who will be making sure they don't lick their fingers as they count their cash!

Straight dot com

Or they could send them to charity if they are offended and wait for a new lot to come out

You could report your own excess thread and ask for it to be deleted!

I think the extra one has been deleted luckygirl and very interesting elegran what you said

On Twitter one furious vegan asked 'what consideration was given to vegans and their human rights in the making of these ? '

I have to agree with Sarah Vine when she says " there is only one sensible answer to that: none whatsoever you ridiculous person"

Well I think this is the way to go.

I never lick my bank notes

although I have been known to kiss them goodbye

especially

How strange I actually had a post going on here asking whether people liked the new
'plastic ' five pound notes, but can't find it any longer. I am either not looking properly, or it has been deleted!

Oooops! Managed to find it.

Are they on a menu somewhere?? How do we make them digestible?

Having been vegetarian for over forty years, I object to it, too, and have signed a petition!

Tallow is not just any animal fat. It comes from rendered fat from the abattoir. All your soap used to be made from it. I always made sure my soap was vegetable soap.

I am sure there must be another type of tallow which does the same. Probably costs a bit more, but if there is so little in the polymer, it will not be excessively expensive.

Whilst I understand vegan's point of view (especially as my daughter is so vocal about it ), i am sure that all notes have traces of meat/drugs/germs etc on them so this is not new

Was coal tar soap made with tallow?

See if anyone answers before I find out from Wiki....

Weren't candles made with tallow too? Cheap ones anyway.

Am seeing a friend tomorrow who is a vegetarian and a Hindu, so I shall ask for her thoughts on the new fiver.Considering that she wears leather shoes and leather handbags, I would be interested to know.

Yes. Tallow reacted with sodium hydroxide to make sodium tallowate.

Lots of things including some soaps have animal products ( lanolin from sheeps wool etc.)

Coal tar soap doesn't contain tallow

Tizliz, although most notes will probably have traces of animal products on them, this is actually being made with it embedded in them.

Over 100,000 signatures already.

Since soap manufacturers have had to put ingredients lists on the packaging, very few use sodium tallowate. I wonder why that is.

Ah the onward march of civilisation! That which provided a cheap source of light for the working classes in bygone days is now shunned by "right" thinking progressive vegetarians and vegans, but welcomed as an excuse for yet another petition

The better-off Tories, meanwhile, will realise with satisfaction that the tallow in the new plastic fiver will increase its efficiency as a spill for lighting their decorative Christmas candles.

So it's win-win all round. Well done the Bank of England!