We all use ‘em – some of us a little too much, but we can’t live without them. You know what I’m talking about. Those wicked little pieces of plastic, which, after they expire get cut up and tossed in a landfill. And now, with the massive credit crunch might going down, many companies have rendered several of your credit cards useless. On a large scale – that equates to millions of plastic cards being thrown out, taking thousands of years to degrade while polluting natural resources like water and soil.

However, the good people over at Discover have found a new way to make money off us without destroying the environment while doing so.

Discover announced the launch of a biodegradable Discover Card option, made of biodegradable PVC, a substance that allows 99 percent of the card plastic to be safely absorbed when exposed to landfill conditions. The company also offered card holders an additional opportunity to help the environment by enrolling in paperless statements.

Now a credit card may seem like too small a piece of plastic to worry about, but with 1.5 billion cards in use in the United States, well, that’s a lot of plastic to throw into our landfills.

A Discover spokesperson says, “We are well pleased with the interest we’ve seen from consumers and our cardmembers about the biodegradable card.”