Mastercard has announced a new global initiative to recycle credit and debit cards in a move which the payments company said will save billions of cards from landfill.

The programme initially launches with HSBC across eight branches in the UK. Mastercard said that other banks from across the world will be able to participate and help build economies of scale, with many already launching local initiatives.

Mastercard will provide participating HSBC banks with shredding machines capable of holding 10,000 cards, equivalent to 50 kg of plastic. When full, the machine will be transferred to a plastic recycling facility.

The pilot project will run for an initial six months and will allow customers to recycle any plastic card ranging from bank cards from HSBC and its rivals to loyalty cards from retailers.

Mastercard says it currently has around 3.1 billion cards in circulation, and estimates that around 600 million cards are produced by the financial industry each year. A report from Nilson estimates that there were nearly 26 billion total cards in circulation in 2022 with the vast majority of these set to end up in landfill.

Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence at Mastercard, said: "We are inviting all card issuers around the world to partner with us, no matter what region they are in, and offer card recycling to their customers.”

Jose Carvalho, head of wealth and personal banking at HSBC UK, added: "This recycling pilot will provide us with some very important insight and will inform our longer-term plans.”

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