Pennies are useless clutter, so why are they still around?

We’ve all been there. You buy something at the store, pay cash, and then stand there counting pennies to lessen the load on your wallet and foist them onto the store, all while the clerk watches impatiently and the people in line behind you fume.

What good are pennies? No one wants to carry them around and they pile up in your home. You fill containers because you can’t use them to buy anything in a vending machine or pay a toll, so there is nearly no benefit to carrying them around. Perhaps you pay electronically with a debit or credit card, so pennies don’t plague you, but try paying in cash, and you can’t escape them.

Even if you take away the annoyance factor, pennies are bad for the environment being made of 3% copper and 97% zinc, heavy metals that must be mined. Currently the largest zinc mine in the U.S., Red Dog Mine, has had problems with toxins entering the air as metal-laden dust, and metals leaching into the ground and water, prompting a lawsuit from communities downstream from its operations.

Metal mining becomes more expensive as the value of heavy metals goes up. As of 2010, it cost the government 1.79 cents to create each penny. The U.S. Mint created four billion pennies in 2010 at a $32 million loss. Lawmakers looked at all the items on the budget and cut funds for education and other much needed programs, but decided to keep churning out pennies at a financial loss.

The biggest argument against eliminating pennies is that rounding prices to the nearest nickel would cost consumers money, however, those paying electronically wouldn’t be affected, only consumers paying cash. A 2006 study showed that consumers actually gained about one cent for every 40 transactions, which essentially means that stores and consumers broke even.

Getting rid of the penny also cuts down on wasting time. Consumers and clerks spend at least a few seconds during each transaction that the customer digs for pennies or the clerk counts out change. Studies estimate that consumers spend more than 12 hours a year dealing with pennies, and that doesn’t include rolling them and taking them to the bank to trade them in.

One California business has taken matters into its own hands. Mike’s Bikes has banned pennies in its nine stores. The company is rounding each cash transaction down, in favor of the customer every time. Mike’s Bikes estimates that by eliminating pennies, it will save over $5,000 a year, and it wants to pass on some of those savings to their customers.

Why are we still stuck with this fiscally useless and environmentally damaging clutter? The penny debate has been raging since 2001, when U.S. Representative Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) introduced legislation to eliminate it. The legislation failed and despite numerous arguments to retire it, a decade later the (bad) penny still keeps turning up.

image: tattooed jj

The post A Penny Saved Is Not Worth Much appeared first on EcoSalon.

I hate to admit it, but I’m an instant gratification kind of gal. On the rare occasions that I rouse myself to do something positive, I like to be rewarded with the immediate and obvious results of my efforts.

When I clean, I want to see a sparkling and orderly house that smells, however briefly, of Pine Sol and Lemon Pledge. When I diet, I like to see immediate results – either on my scale or on my thighs. But when I recycle, I see”¦absolutely nothing.

There is, of course, the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping the planet – in an amorphous, down-the-road kind of way. But the fact is I will never really know if the mayonnaise jar I rinse out and recycle today will improve the ozone layer tomorrow. I have nothing concrete to show for my efforts and no definitive proof that I am improving the world even a smidgen. For me, recycling has always been the epitome of a delayed gratification task. Until now.

I have found a wonderful new way to recycle, one that lets me do my part for a greener planet while rewarding me with an immediate payoff – literally. I have begun recycling coins – the heavy and unsanitary loose change that weighs down every purse I own and rattles around in my pockets. I am no longer burdened with those funky nickels and dimes that reproduce like rabbits and clutter up my counters in a depressing, down-market display. Coins are everywhere in my house – collecting dust in shoe boxes, carelessly scattered on top of night tables, and stuffed into plastic takeout food containers. My house is an unlikely cross between Chase Manhattan Bank and an episode of “Hoarders.”

But it turns out that the coins you accumulate in your home are not just unattractive, they are bad for the environment, too. It is estimated that nearly 10 billion dollars’ worth of loose change is sitting idle in American homes right now. And every coin sitting in a jar on your dresser is a coin the U.S government feels the need to replace. Minting money is a drain on resources and energy, so putting your loose change back into circulation is, ultimately, an eco-friendly thing to do.

And now, thanks to the Penny Arcade machine at TD Bank, going green is easy – you just toss your unwanted coins into the machine, and accept paper money in return. If you’re not the most pristine of money hoarders, there’s even a reject tray where your non-coin items will be spit out. When my husband and I brought in our last haul, the machine coughed out a bunch of Canadian nickels, a button, a rusted screw and two Advil tablets. We walked away with over $400 in crisp, clean bills, and it was, by far, my favorite recycling experience to date.

I’d like to be the kind of person who’s enthusiastic about recycling – even without a cash incentive. But the reality is, I have a daughter starting college in 11 months, and most American universities charge $40,000 a year.

It’s time to pull apart the couch cushions and look for more change.

Image: tsmall

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