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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
byPowercntrl ( 458442 ) writes:
Is there really any reason we can't just make pennies out of plastic instead? Personally, I haven't used cash in ages anyway so I'm really neither here nor there on running out of pennies, but it seems like if the problem is just that they cost too much to manufacture, make them out of something cheaper.
byallcoolnameswheretak ( 1102727 ) writes:
Counterfeiting, durability, even more plastic pollution in the environment... yes, plenty of reasons.
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byPowercntrl ( 458442 ) writes:
I doubt you'd really have to worry much about counterfeiting since it would likely not be profitable. As for durability, the whole reason the treasury has to keep minting so many pennies in the first place is because people tend to not circulate them anyway, so plastic would hold up just fine.
The fact they'd ultimately end up as pollution is a legitimate concern. In the grand scheme of things though, it's still probably a drop in the bucket compared against the multitude of other disposable plastic goods
bythegarbz ( 1787294 ) writes:
That applies to currencies in general but in the case of the penny no one is going to be counterfeiting them. And the average penny doesn't live long, they are the most thrown away coin in any modern economy.
Pollution is an issue though.
byjonadab ( 583620 ) writes:
Realistically, counterfeiting is irrelevant for pennies. They're not worth enough to be a viable counterfeiting option. You'd be lugging around huge crates of the things, and counterfeiters don't like to draw that much attention when passing their fake currency.
This of course does not in any way imply that we should still be minting them.
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