Cleaner notes in the community
Guardian®; polymer banknote substrate is non-fibrous and non-porous. This means that polymer banknotes are impermeable to water, sweat, beverages and oil. They also result in relatively dust free banknotes which remain impressively clean throughout their life.

High volume cash handlers and the community in general appreciate the cleanliness of polymer banknotes. The absence of dirt and the minimal ink rub-off means that hands stay much cleaner when counting polymer notes compared to paper notes.

Being dust-free, there is far less maintenance required in machines such as automatic teller machines, counting/sorting machines, etc; this results in higher processing rates and lower costs. The final overcoating adds to the cleanliness by resisting the accumulation of dirt, and also protects the banknote from excessive ink wear.

Further, scientific evaluation has shown that there is significantly less bacteriological growth on polymer banknotes, and that any bacteria which gets onto the notes quickly dies because of the lack of nutrients on the non-porous and non-fibrous material:

"Microbial populations on banknotes - Die-off of the microbial populations is more rapid on polymer notes than on paper notes and is probably due to lack of moisture and nutrient on the notes.

Polymer notes appear to absorb less moisture than paper notes and fewer micro-organisms adhere to the surface.

The change from paper to polymer for banknotes will result in even lower populations of micro-organisms being carried on money, and in more rapid decline of those micro-organisms which do adhere to the notes."