Following a Twitter admission by the Bank of England, nearly two dozen countries — including Canada — learned this week that their polymer banknotes contain trace amounts of animal by-products.
Specifically, the banknotes contain tiny quantities of tallow, a hard, fatty beef by-product typically used in the manufacture of soap, candles and industrial lubricants. Tallow can also be made from sheep.
A Bank of Canada spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that all of Canada’s polymer bills contained “literally minute” amounts of tallow.
The ingredient first became publicized thanks to vegan activists in the United Kingdom, where polymer bills were first introduced in September.
In a Monday tweet to concerned British vegan Steffi Rox, the Bank of England confirmed “there is a trace of tallow in the polymer pellets used in the base substrate of the polymer £5 notes.” The term “substrate” refers to the base material of the bills onto which all other features are added.
@SteffiRox there is a trace of tallow in the polymer pellets used in the base substrate of the polymer £5 notes
— Bank of England (@bankofengland) November 28, 2016
The polymer in virtually all of the world’s plastic bills is made by a single Australian company, Innovia Security.
Innovia are the makers of Guardian, a substrate used to manufacture the polymer currency of 24 countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico and New Zealand.
Tallow does not appear to be a stand-alone or critical ingredient in Guardian, but the by-product got into the substrate because it is used in processing by Innovia’s resin suppliers.
“Polymer substrate used as a base for bank notes contains additives that help with the polymer manufacturing process, similar to many commercially available plastics,” wrote the Bank of Canada in a Wednesday statement after contacting Innovia.
“Our supplier of polymer substrate, Innovia Security, has confirmed to us that these additives may include extremely small amounts of tallow,” the statement added.
In the U.K., an online petition to “remove tallow from banknotes” had garnered 47,000 signatures as of Wednesday morning. The petition has just narrowly pulled ahead of the 44,000 people who signed a petition looking to put David Bowie on a British banknote.
Over in cattle-packed New Zealand, which also has the Innovia-made bill, vegans seemed more indifferent. Vegan Society New Zealand told local media they didn’t intend to “jump up and down” over the bills, while the New Zealand animal rights organization SAFE said it was a “good example of how animal products can pop up in places we don’t expect them to.”
Indeed, small amounts of processed cow parts can be found in everything from pill capsules to chewing gum to shampoo to brake fluid. In fact, almost all of the images ever featured on historic Canadian currency would have first been prepared by an artist using tallow as part of the engraving process.
Tallow has also gotten McDonald’s into trouble. In 2002, the fast food giant issued an apology and a $10 million donation after vegetarian and religious groups expressed outrage that the company’s French fries were cooked with tallow.
McDonald’s quickly replaced the beef by-product with vegetable oil.
The presence of beef in unsuspected locations is of particular concern for Hindus, who consider cows sacred. Eating beef is also eschewed by many Sikhs, although it is not a religious requirement.
“It’s not something we appreciate,” Vinod Sharma, president of the United Hindu Congress of Canada, told the National Post.
• Email: thopper@nationalpost.com | Twitter: TristinHopper
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