However, I recently discovered that not a single tree is cut down to make America's money! Is this because the U.S. Treasury wants to save forests? No, it's because wood pulp-based currency would simply not be durable enough to survive the wear-and-tear from endless encounters with human hands, wallets and vending machines.
Those bills in your pocket and purses are actually more like fabric, created from a legally-protected combination of 75% cotton and 25% linen fibers. That blend creates the unique feel of our bills — kind of rough to the touch.
So, how about people in other countries — do they carry trees in their wallets? Since 2002, Euro banknotes use bills that are pure cotton fiber. And in the land down under, Australians use currencies made of polymer, which has a waxy feel and lasts twice as long as bills made of natural fibers.
But trees have played a role in the history of money. During the 13th century, Marco Polo was astonished when he encountered money made from bark of mulberry trees at the court of Kublai Khan in China, where paper money had been in circulation since the seventh century. The idea that one small light thing could have the same value as many heavy things — with the backing of the state — was an incredible innovation. Kublai Khan’s mulberry bark currency was stamped, sealed and, Polo wrote, “issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver.” It also included a warning to anyone tempted to make their own that all counterfeiters would be put to death.
Today, four mulberry trees grow in the courtyard of the Head Office of the Bank of England in London, a reminder of paper currency’s history.
So, even though our money neither grows on trees nor is made from trees, the next time you pay with a bill, you can think of those early bark notes and be glad the idea caught on. It’s lighter on the wallet.
