Global payments giant Mastercard (MA) has announced plans to recycle billions of plastic credit and debit cards, diverting them from landfills around the world.
Mastercard has invited banks worldwide to join the program and help build economies of scale for its new recycling initiative.
Under the plan, Mastercard will provide shredding machines to issuers of its credit and debit cards, each of which will be able to hold 10,000 cards, equivalent to 110 pounds of plastic.
Once the shredding machine is full, the contents will be transferred to a plastic recycling facility.
Mastercard is now running a six-month pilot project of the recycling program with British bank HSBC (HSBC).
Currently, Mastercard has more than three billion cards in circulation. An additional 600 million plastic cards are produced by the industry each year.
Plastic credit and debit cards have a life span of about five years, said Mastercard.
The Nilson Report, which analyzes the financial industry, estimates that there were nearly 26 billion credit and debit cards in circulation during 2022.
Mastercard’s stock has risen 18% in the past 12 months to trade at $374.62 U.S. per share
