Though the European Union has some of the toughest GM regulations in the world, it has ignored the transgenic fibres in its own currency. The engineered banknotes are not even labelled.

Most modern banknotes are printed on cotton-based paper, as it is both highly durable and difficult to forge. Sterling uses a mixture of cotton and linen rag, while the euro is 100 per cent cotton.

While the Bank of England imports its raw material mainly from Turkey, which does not grow GM cotton, one of the European Central Bank’s main suppliers is America, where three quarters of the cotton crop is now transgenic.

American farmers and wholesalers do not separate conventional and GM cotton, and the ECB has no procedure for tracing the origin of the fibres it buys. As a result, GM cotton certainly finds its way into many banknotes, and may be present in them all.

The biotechnology of the single currency has been revealed by Klaus Ammann, of the University of Berne in Switzerland, and Oliver Rautenberg, of the German company BioLinX, who have even designed an alternative 20-euro note that advertises its genetically engineered contents.

“The central bank will not acknowledge it, but it is inconceivable that there is no GM cotton in the euro,” Dr Ammann said. “The single currency is genetically modified.”

The ECB said that it could not say whether GM material was used. “We buy banknote paper of the highest quality, which is made from 100 per cent cotton, but we do not provide specifics on the ingredients,” a spokesman said.

Most GM cotton is modified to produce a toxin called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt, which kills the corn borer, a devastating pest. It is not harmful to human health and has reduced the need to spray pesticides, though some environmentalists are concerned that it could lead to growing resistance among insects. While the European Union requires GM foods to be labelled, fibres do not have to carry any warning.

Dr Ammann said that the euro issue raised questions about the future of labelling, and that the policy was inconsistent and hypocritical. Green groups said that they were alarmed that people with concerns about GM crops would be forced to use them in their currency.

Pete Riley, of Friends of the Earth, said it would be perfectly possible for the ECB to source non-GM cotton.

“Many of the people who are concerned about GM crops are worried about the environmental impacts rather than food safety,” he said.

“If the EU wanted to adopt a policy that would actually help southern cotton farmers, there are plenty of places in the world that would be only too willing and able to fulfil such a contract.”

...but old coins are in demand

THERE is life after death for the millions of national coins that were consigned to the graveyard this year with the arrival of the euro.

They are being recycled and reincarnated as chips in personal computers, connectors for mobile phones, pipes for drinking water and electric cables in homes. Some are even enjoying a second life . . . as euros.

The Spanish firm Elmet is one of a handful of companies that specialises in recycling the old coins. Early last year it opened a new factory in Bilbao to handle the huge increase in supplies. Within a few weeks of starting work in January, it had demonetised 35,000 tonnes of Spanish pesetas and 6,000 tonnes of Irish punts and pence, and sent a large consignment of the cleaned coins to Daewoo in Korea.

There, they were turned into blank euros before being shipped back to Europe where national mints stamped them with their appropriate currency values before they found their way back into people’s pockets.

John Schonenberger, the chief executive of the European Copper Institute in Brussels, explained that there was money to be made in recycling old metals. “The message is that metals are valuable materials that are needed again and again,” he said.

The task of recycling the 262,055 tonnes of coins from the 12 national currencies that have now passed into history will take until 2005 as each item is defaced and broken down into small pieces. Over the next three years the operation will produce almost 147,000 tonnes of copper, 54,000 tonnes of steel and 43,000 tonnes of nickel. As the main metal in Nordic gold, copper is used for the production of the 50, 20 and 10 euro cent coins, all of which should have a 30-year lifespan.

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