The British vegans have a reason for concern. It is hard to stick to the principles of humane attitude towards animals when it deals with money. Surely, you can easily refuse to eat meat or use the ingredients of animal origin but you cannot refuse to use cash even in the United Kingdom.
Those who choose not to eat anything derived from animals may face some difficulties with using cash. Just recently, it has turned out that new plastic banknotes of the pound sterling contain tallow. This fact shocked the local vegans who raised a storm of protest together with animal rights activists. The Bank of England was surprised by such a reaction, having already spent 46 million pounds for issue of these banknotes. At first, the officials even promised to check whether it is reasonable to use tallow for money creation. However, later the central bank stated that no changes would be done to the contents of the polymer. The bank argued that the percentage of fat in the polymer is ultimately low, so there is no use to make a fuss about it. Animal fat may be substituted for vegetable oil, but the bank estimated the cost of switching would be about 16.5 million pounds.
On the new plastic banknote there is a portrait of Winston Churchill, the former UK Prime Minister who once said: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. And fat, we can now add.
