LONDON: The Bank of England is facing a public outcry after it emerged that its new five-pound (6.2-dollar) banknotes contain traces of animal fat, prompting a promise by the lender to find “potential solutions.”
More than 108,000 people had signed a petition on change.org demanding that the bank “cease to use animal products in the production of currency that we have to use.”
The lender responded to the uproar in a statement that said it is treating concerns with the “utmost seriousness.”
“This issue has only just come to light, and the bank did not know about it when the contract was signed,” the statement added.
It explained that an “extremely small amount of tallow is used in an early stage of the production process of polymer pellets, which are then used to create the base substrate for the five-pound note.”
The bank has pledged to work closely with supplier Innovia Films, the company which prints the polymer bills, in order to find “potential solutions.”
The Bank of England began issuing the plastic five-pound notes featuring wartime prime minister Winston Churchill in September, saying they offer better security and are strong enough to survive a spin in a washing machine.
There are plans to issue similar plastic 10-pound notes in mid-2017 and 20-pound notes by 2020.
But the use of tallow in the new banknotes — commonly known as fivers — is “unacceptable to millions of vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and others in the UK,” the change.org petition reads.
Innovia said in a statement that resins used to make them contain less than 1 per cent of additives that are “commonly used across the plastics industry” and include “tiny traces” of tallow. — dpa
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