Should We Become a Cashless Society?
Julie Starr • November 10, 2020
Over the past century, technology has revolutionized the way we pay for goods and services. From painstakingly counting out coins by the checkout in order to purchase a pint of milk, to buying a brand new Mercedes with a single tap of a thin piece of plastic on a
card reader
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American consumers now use cash in only 26% of purchases , and this figure is falling every year. There are many more convenient ways to pay for things, and the act of carrying cash around now seems archaic and outdated. Contactless debit cards and mobile apps allow us to pay for items without a second thought while keeping our money and personal data secure at the same time.
Only a few years ago, services like vending machines and taxicabs required you to pay with cash, but now it’s more difficult to find one that will accept your dirty pennies. It’s clear that we are rapidly moving away from a reliance on physical currency, but will we ever become a truly cashless society?
There are several implications of a cashless society, only some of which are positive. To determine whether it is a good idea to become completely cashless, it is worthwhile to delve into the pros and cons.
The pros of a cashless society
- It’s cheaper: Manufacturing and distributing cash costs the US government $877.2 million each year . And it’s the taxpayer who ends up bearing the weight of this cost.
- It is sustainable: Getting rid of cash means fewer resources wasted on the production and distribution of currency.
- It reduces crime: Cash is untraceable, making it easier for people to engage in tax avoidance scams and accept cash in hand payments. As a result, a great deal of tax revenue is lost. When all money is digital, every transaction can be traced, thus reducing financial crime. Businesses will no longer store cash on-site, which will undoubtedly lead to a reduction in robberies and burglaries.
- It is more convenient: Paying for goods and services digitally is considerably quicker and more efficient than dealing with cash. Consumers no longer have to carry around notes and coins wherever they go, and queuing times will be dramatically reduced.
- It is cleaner: In light of the coronavirus pandemic, it has become apparent that handling and exchanging cash is unhygienic and can transmit germs. Going cashless will eliminate health risks.
- It is more secure (in some ways): Stolen cash is gone forever, but it is easy to trace digital transactions and get your money back if you have been a victim of online fraud.
The cons of a cashless society
- It can lead to bad spending habits: When you can make expensive purchases with a single click, people may become less aware of their cash flow and compulsive spending habits.
- It is less social: Paying with cash requires interaction with cashiers and retail staff. Digital finance removes the social side of payment and leaves a simple, emotionless transaction.
- It is LESS secure (in some ways): Digital payment makes us more vulnerable to technical failures, online hackers, and cyberattacks.
- It is threatening the high-street: Digital payment has led to a rise in online shopping, which threatens physical stores and forces them to close down.
Although it will lead to a much more sustainable and reliable form of currency, going cashless will present a few risks that must be managed if we are to completely abandon physical money.
What happens when students stop waiting for adults to fix things and start conducting their own energy audits? Money gets saved. The lights get switched off. Data gets analyzed. And a quiet revolution in sustainability begins—inside schools that once overlooked their own inefficiencies. Across the globe, student-led energy audits are proving that change doesn't always need to come from a policy shift or a major capital budget. Sometimes, it begins with a clipboard, a spreadsheet, and a group of curious minds asking: Why are the hallway lights on at noon when sunlight floods the building? The Energy Detectives These audits aren’t science fair projects. They’re rigorous investigations, often done in collaboration with facilities staff, local environmental nonprofits, or even engineering mentors. Students go from classroom to classroom measuring electricity usage, checking for phantom loads , and identifying where heat is escaping in winter or air conditioning is leaking in summer. One high school in Ontario saved over $12,000 a year after its Grade 11 physics students ran an energy audit and suggested simple changes—LED upgrades, motion sensors in bathrooms, and smarter heating schedules. They didn’t just propose ideas. They pitched them with spreadsheets, thermal images, and payback timelines. It worked. Learning That Pays Off—Literally Unlike textbook learning, these audits blend real-world math, environmental science, economics, and persuasive communication. Students aren’t just learning about sustainability. They’re doing it. And the savings add up. From dimming overlit hallways to reprogramming HVAC systems that run all weekend for empty buildings, students are surfacing blind spots that administrators often overlook. In some districts, their findings are influencing energy policy. Elsewhere, the audits have inspired school boards to hire sustainability coordinators—often alumni of the student programs themselves. There’s something poetic about a school funding new books or laptops from money saved by students who found out the vending machines didn’t need to be plugged in 24/7. Why This Matters More Than Ever With education budgets tightening and utility costs rising, every dollar saved is a dollar that can go back into classrooms. And here’s where it gets interesting from a family finance perspective, too. If you’re a parent setting aside money for post-secondary savings, every bit of school efficiency helps. Fewer energy costs might mean more programming, better STEM facilities, or even bursaries. That raises a broader point: when families save for their children’s future, they often look into RESPs (Registered Education Savings Plans). And many wonder—is a RESP deduction available on my taxes? While contributions themselves aren’t deductible, the gains grow tax-free, and students often pay little to no tax when they withdraw the funds during school. A Movement Worth Replicating These audits aren’t just an exercise in environmentalism. They’re leadership labs. Students learn how to spot inefficiencies, speak up in board meetings, and make a business case for change. They don’t just flip switches—they shift mindsets. And they carry these habits into adulthood. The result? A generation growing up not only with climate anxiety, but also with tools to tackle it.
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.