Polymer Bank Notes: Impact On The Environment And Society

Did you know the first penney the u.S. has ever seen was created and produced in the year 1857? The penny we know of has been in the states for 161 years. In the year 2012 there was a proposal that the United States get rid of the penny, the least valuable coin in the money system. The penny has so little value, but cost too much to make. Although the U.S. loses millions of dollars a year to the production of pennies, American pennies should not be ceased minting because of the risk of economic changes,the piece of culture they each possess and their “ power in numbers”.

Every day we buy things, and to purchase these items, most of us use credit cards or bills. Do we use pennies for virtually any transactions? The answer is no, we don’t. Consequently, the penny is far and away the least useful monetary value we have. Pennies are inefficient and should be cut out of the currency. The rationale behind this conclusion is simple: the price tag of minting a penny is more than one cent. Unfortunately for the penny, two other reasons prove that we require it no longer. The first reason is that not only will the removal of pennies make us more effective, it will drop prices similar to what happened in Australia and New Zealand when they abolished their “pennies”. The second is that we know that we do not need it

In Forbes magazine, Neena Moorjani said “It’s practically useless in everyday life” (Lewis). Most people today fling their pennies into the trash, they drop out of circulation, or in couch cushions where you won’t see them again. In the 1900’s there was a thing called penny candy. You could go to a local store and buy one piece, or a few pieces of your favorite candy with just one penny. Today, candy bars from a gas station can cost up to two dollars. Adding to this, vending machines cause problems with coins. The vending machines used to take all types of coins, nickels, dimes and even pennies. If you try to put a penny in a machine now it will just spit it back out or an alarm will sound. In stores when someone says “one second I think I have some pennies” is very annoying. It uses about “...40 wasted seconds per day per person.

The production of the one cent piece has long been a topic of controversy. Some argue for the penny saying that the penny has been a part of U.S. history for over 200 years; while those on the opposing side argue that eliminating the penny could save retail businesses time and therefore money by saving the time wasted counting pennies at the register. Some argue that we should phase out pennies because the value is so little that no one uses them; In fact, the face value of the penny is so little that it costs more to produce it. Because of the downsides to the continued production of the penny, we ought to phase the penny out.

When's the last time you used a penny? Most people rarely use them, but the US mint makes nearly 7.5 billions pennies each and every year, but for what? Some say pennies have been around too long and you can't just get rid of them, however when you take into account that the penny costs more than it’s face value then you might change your mind. It’s time for pennies to go, on average all the pennies we make cost the US almost $900 million per year. Now this cost isn't even including the time, fuel, expenses, and the hassle of shipping all these pennies to the banks, just for everybody to throw them in a penny jar.

At this point in the American economic system, there is no good use for the penny. As U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe’s press secretary, Neena Moorjani, said, “‘It’s practically useless in everyday life’” (Lewis). People can’t purchase anything with it, it creates unnecessary loose change, and it has a time consuming effect. The penny is not regarded by charge cards, it is trashed by those who find it meaningless, and is even “Hijacked by cashiers who assume you’re among the 27 percent of Americans who don’t even keep track of their loose change” (Kahn). The New York Times’s John Tierney recognized that “Two-thirds of them immediately drop out of circulation, into piggy banks or behind chair cushions or at the back of sock drawers…” (Safire). Pennies vanish because no one cares about their worth. People do not have a high regard for them or their value, so they are always misplaced. Every time a penny is lost, which happens quite frequently as Tierney points out, governmental manufacturers’ time and money is being wasted. The penny is a time-consuming coin, and without it, people involved in its use would have better places to put their time. Those government manufacturers could be tracking counterfeiters if they did not have to worry about creating the penny. Pennies cost more employee hours than the cost would be to totally eliminate them (Safire). By using pennies in stores, there is a huge amount of time wasted in both the cashier’s and the buyer’s lives. There was an estimation done by the National Association of Convenience Stores and Walgreens drug store chains that the use of pennies takes about 2 to 2.5 seconds. After multiple calculations and equations, they arrived at the conclusion “that each person is losing $60 per year, at a cost to the nation of over $15 billion per year” (Kahn). Time is a valuable thing in America, and losing $60 per year due to a loss of time is not

Pennies can actually reduce your money by wasting your time. “Time wasted counting pennies could add up to over $700 million per year nationwide!” (Mancuso) How does time waste money? Well, in retail businesses, employers pay their employees by the hour, and if the customer or employee spends just two point five seconds counting pennies, thoses seconds can add up and both the employees and companies will be losing thousands (Mancuso). If you have a job, then you depend on it to earn money, but with your tax money going to pay for the expensive penny, and/or having your time and money wasted counting pennies in the retail business, the expensive could cost you thousands of dollars. The penny is also very inefficient and people throw them away, but their throwing away your money, costing you even more in taxes to remake the lost

Over the recent years, there has been an argument in the US whether pennies should no longer be manufactured. In some places, the pennies have already stop making the pennies, and have started rounding to the nearest multiple of 5. We should still keep the pennies, since it has been part of the US history for long, it has expanded our culture, and it is cheaper to make compared to the nickel.

The metals used in producing the penny are too dangerous and costly. First, zinc and copper are the main components in the penny production, which is threatening to the environment. First, almost all the penny is made up of zinc, which in high doses is harmful to animals and even humans. According to “Livingston”, “In addition, zinc itself, though in small amounts, is harmful in high doses to both humans and animals.” Second, zinc and copper are too expensive in the making of the penny. To justify, the demand price for zinc has doubled and the demand price for copper has tripled. As mentioned by “Browning”, “Worldwide demand for copper, nickel, and zinc have

Paper recycling, on the other hand has been around for much longer. Pulp and paper plants in Canada have been using recycled material for more than 60 years (Bourdages, 1993, para. 4). One of the most obvious environmental benefits of using recycled paper materials, is that it will help to reduce the amount of trees being cut down for production of new paper. Overall, it is evident that there is an established recycling effort in Canada, featuring both positive and negative aspects.

In conclusion, pennies cost too much to produce and have little value of no meaning. It is a waste of time and hardly anyone uses it. Thus, I believe the production and distribution of pennies should

Around the world, people are deciding whether or not the penny should be retired. There are some places that have ended the production of pennies and had a successful penny-free economy, while others are still trying to figure out whether we should still use the penny or not. Now, the cost to produce a penny is more than the actual worth of a penny itself. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said, “The penny is a currency without any currency in Canada, and it costs us 1.5 cents to produce a penny.” In places such as Canada though, they have no need for pennies anymore because they don’t see the benefits of them, but in places such as the U.S. the penny could be really useful when you actually think about it. When pennies all add up they can really make a difference in the economy and because of this, I believe that the penny should not be retired.

Approximately 715,000,000 bills weighing 7,000 tons are shredded every year. This number accounts for 3% of the total value of paper money in circulation. Why are more one dollar bills shredded than one hundred dollar bills each year? This is because one dollar bills are more often used to buy goods and services each year than one hundred dollar bills. Consequently, one dollar bills have shorter

The objective of this report is to illustrate the effect of the implementation of a plastic bag tax in Australia. By providing a brief overview of issues, correlated with plastic bag consumption in conjunction with current and proposed changes to policies in Australia. Through the application of economic theory, it can determined whether a tax would decrease consumption and through supporting evidence indicating its efficiency when applied in practice.

While manufacturing papers we use wood pulp from trees, producing plastic requires the use of