What are credit cards made of?
Credit cards take PVC, ink, PET plastic, microchip and adhesive directly. Trace them back and you pass 56 made things on the way to 23 raw materials.
How credit cards are made See it on the map
What goes straight in
From the ground: 23 raw materials
- Water through adhesive
- Natural gas through PET plastic, ethylene
- Rock salt through PVC, chlorine
- Iron ore through ink, pigment
- Sulfur through ink, pigment
- Air through PVC, plasticizer
- Soybeans through ink, vegetable oil
- Rapeseed through ink, vegetable oil
- Clay through ink, vegetable oil
- Crude oil through ink, carbon black
- Titanium ore through ink, titanium dioxide
- Corn through ink, ethanol
- Sugarcane through ink, ethanol
- Quartz through microchip, silicon wafer
- Tin ore through microchip, tin
- Copper ore through microchip, copper
- Coal through microchip, aluminum
- Gold ore through microchip, gold
- Limestone through microchip, gold, quicklime
- Bauxite through microchip, aluminum, alumina
- Zinc ore through microchip, gold, zinc
- Sugar beet through ink, ethanol, baker's yeast, molasses
- Timber through microchip, silicon wafer, polysilicon, metallurgical silicon
Made along the way: 51 things
Metals 7
Chemicals and fuels 31
EthyleneChlorinePigmentPlasticizerCarbon blackTitanium dioxideEthanolPara-xyleneEthylene glycolOxygen gasParaffin waxNaphthaSulfuric acidPropyleneHexanePhenolFormaldehydeCarbon dioxideArgonPetroleum cokeQuicklimeAmmoniaMethanolAcetoneCaustic sodaNitric acidHydrogenBenzeneHydrochloric acidTolueneCharcoal