In brief:

Earth Day was celebrated on the 22nd of April.

Global pollution levels have dropped drastically due to lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID19.

The team at Ripple highlighted the efficiency of XRP.

Yesterday, April 22nd, was the 50th Earth Day celebration. Previous events have been celebrated by global communities planting trees, carrying out clean-ups and enjoying various outdoor activities. However, the event this year was celebrated via Virtual activities as the world copes with lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID19. Coincidentally, the levels of air pollution in major global cities have fallen drastically as a result of individuals driving less and manufacturing almost grinding to a halt. The team at Ripple celebrated Earth Day by highlighting the efficiency and sustainability of XRP as a form of currency.

Paper Money and Credit/Debit Cards are Not as Environmentally Friendly

In the post, the team first took a look at the environmental effects of paper money and popular credit/debit cards. In their analysis, the team pointed out the following:

Paper money plays a major part in global deforestation. 400 million tons of paper is milled per year and some of it is used to create this form of currency.

The average lifespan of a paper bill is 16 months, thus more trees have to be felled to replaced old notes.

Coins also need to be minted from metals and the process is very energy-intensive.

Credit/Debit cards are made primarily from plastics that are very much harmful to the environment.

The PVC used to create these cards is hard to recycle.

To create each card takes around 4.25 grams of petroleum.

With an estimated 2.8 billion cards in circulation annually, around 79,000 barrels of oil are used per year to create them.

Efficiency and Sustainability of XRP

The team at Ripple went on to highlight the efficiency and sustainability of using XRP as a currency by first looking at the energy consumption of Bitcoin and Ethereum. One major difference between these assets is the fact that BTC and ETH are minable whereas XRP is not. The process of mining BTC and ETH consumes a large amount of electricity. Some estimates equate the energy consumption of mining one BTC to the daily consumption of 4 average homes.

With regards to the efficiency of XRP, the team had this to say:

XRP is an incredibly efficient and sustainable form of currency. To bring it into perspective using the previous lightbulb example, the energy consumed by XRP’s distributed ledger would power a mere seven lightbulbs. That’s a much lower carbon footprint than other currency options available, crypto or otherwise.

(Feature image courtesy of NASA on Unsplash.)