Perhaps because other countries like Australia and Canada have been using these sorts of bank notes for years and none of their vegetarian citizens have ever complained about them?

Maybe some UK vegetarians are a bit more precious?

Boo fricking hoo! Animal products have multiple uses, most for practical purposes.
You CHOOSING to not eat meat or not use any product from an animal is not a good enough reason to change any manufacturing process.

Not eating meat or using animal products is your choice, there is nothing wrong with it. You're the one making that choice, so it is for you to bare the consequence of that choice, if it means you have to sometimes do things you don't like, that is your problem.

The trick would surely be to go to the café armed only with 5 of these new £5 notes, no spare change, no credit/debit card either.

Either you're getting a free coffee and cake, or she's accepting the payment she presently refuses.

And you're making the 'choice' to eat meat and use products derived from killed animals. Why should you be free to make that choice but then deprive us of our choice, because everyone has to use currency? It's not like there's an alternative until we have a cashless society.

What you're basically saying is that people who don't want animals to be killed can't participate fully in society, because the majority doesn't care. Well that's just you being awkward, as the manufacturing process could have quite easily avoided the use killed animal products. It's also sneaky to slip it in without telling us, like those despicable people who get off on pretending the food they're serving is vegetarian and then laugh when someone haplessly eats it and tells them it was meat all along.

Anyway it looks like the Bank of England agrees with us that it made a mistake.

I eat a variety of animals, and I'm happy to use derivative products such as leather. I wouldn't want them to have suffered in any way though. That's where I draw the line.

Far more important than whether or not you eat animals or use animal products though is how much fossil fuel you're using, or necessitating the use of. If I had a choice I wouldn't eat or use anything that has required the burning of fossil fuels, but I'm not free to make that choice.

Given that all of the new bank notes are said to have used just half a cow's worth of tallow I think the 'vegetarian' stance is a bit pathetic. The constitution of our atmosphere is far more important than half a cow, I'm sure you agree, but you're not complaining about being 'forced' to use fossil fuels (to the tune of several tonnes per year).

Why is that?

You don't want them to 'have suffered in any way' - I suggest not visiting a farm or an abbatoir any time soon. I do complain about fossil fuels, along with lactose in medications, animal testing, all sorts of things. I pay extra for a greener energy plan but unfortunately the national grid still relies mostly on non-renewables and it's very hard to avoid however much you protest.

But in this particular case it would have been so easy to think for just a second before manufacturing the notes. It's just thoughtless, and rather arrogant to think that people should just put up with it.

Why when someone is doing any small compassionate/ ethical thing, rather than nothing at all, do others enjoy putting them down with 'but what about....' as if they shouldn't even be trying?

Isn't it rather arrogant to expect this 'thoughtless' error to be remedied at the expense of the planet?

We're not called Whingeing Poms for nothing

I imagine most of the proposed new notes are not even in circulation yet. As producing money is a continuous process, I'm not persuaded that making a change to the formula will result in an increase in greenhouse emissions. If you have data on this by all means show it, but I suspect you might be trying to construct an argument for the sake of it as an attempt at satirising the argument I made.

Send them all to me

I thought you were suggesting that the ones in circulation should be replaced.

They will be anyway in a few years if the formula is changed. I don't know how they could get the current ones out of circulation unless they changed the design and said that the old ones wouldn't be accepted after a certain date, but people might still carry on using them anyway.

I think the best we can hope for is a change to the formula and gradual phasing out, with people trying to avoid them until then. Do you really care about the environmental impact or are you just trying to come up with an opposing argument?

It's called 'debating', and yes I do care. It's a bit rich to accuse me of looking for an argument considering the subject matter.

I'll leave you be.

I was only asking, because that's what happens a lot of times on similar threads when someone decides they think something is trivial, so tries to come up with a counter-argument that they actually don't care about and also think is trivial, but pretend they do passionately. Often this is done as an attempt at satire but more often than not it makes the person look like they don't care about much at all.

I wasn't saying that's what you were doing, I was just wondering.

Australia has had them since the 80's. Are we really that far behind?

There is an alternative, using card over cash. What's the problem with that?

Not everywhere accepts cards, or charges for small payments.

How can you be 100% sure that none of the plastics and inks on the card have a trace of animal byproducts? (Not counting the fact that plastic comes from oil which is itself a product of dead animals)

The vast majority do though and for small payments, why not just use coins?

Basically it wouldn't take much effort to avoid the new fivers, if you could be bothered that is.

I can't be sure as I don't know what exactly goes into making cards. I don't see how using oil would piss a vegan off though, I'd have though there's more likely to be higher animal content in commercially grown crops.

There might be dinosaur products in the oil.

Good post.

I must have walked past that cafe lots of times without knowing that it was there. Now that I know it's there I'll enjoy walking past much more.

Same here. I have been in the Cambridge area 15 year and must have walked past hundreds of times without noticing it. I much prefer the Chop House restaurant a few doors down which does traditional no-nonsense British meat dishes.

The only mistake the B of E have made is pandering to a bunch of cry babies!