Money may not be the first consumer of paper that comes to mind. At least personally, I did not even have money in mind when i started writing this blog.

The US  federal bank printed 6.9 billion notes in 2014. The reason this number is so massive is because most of these notes are used to replace notes already in circulation that have become too worn out. The average US dollar note has a life-span of 18 months. Other countries that use polymer-based noted can last much longer.

Figure 1. Rainfall (Bartos, 2017)

This increases the impact of the environment as the worn out notes often go to waste, although some is send back to the federal bank to recycle the materials.

So this waste money is a problem for the environment. However money doesnt actually contribute to deforestation, as the paper used in the process is not wood pulp. That does negate the negative impacts of printing massive amounts of money (still plenty of waste), especially when using online currency is a viable option for many countries.