Coins and the Environment

There are a lot of concerns regarding the future of the environment and whether the planet may be warming due to human activities. Coins are metal objects, which means by their very composition, their use could be unfriendly to the earth’s ecology.

The average person is unlikely to consider coins as a threat to the environment, but the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has other thoughts on the matter. On December 5, the CBRC released a statement reading, “When people don’t use their coins and leave them at home, the central bank then has to produce more to meet demand, which raises the bank’s costs and also produces more carbon emissions.”

The bank statement continues, “One simple thing that people can do to ‘help protect the ecosystem’ is to gather all those coins from their heavy wallets and those hidden in corners of their homes and spend them,” continuing, “Use those coins that have been lying around your home and in your wallet… to do their bit to protect the planet.”

The Central News Agency is the national news agency of Taiwan. CNA released a news story in which it reads, “To many people, the link between the country achieving net zero emissions and spending their spare change may seem remote, but the central bank said in a statement on its Facebook page that it will only take people ‘lifting a finger’ to help Taiwan reach the goal.”

Taiwan may be a speck on the numismatic beach, but the question of coins impacting the environment negatively is worth consideration.

A 2019 Smithsonian Magazine online article titled “How Much Does it Really Cost (the Planet) to Make a Penny?” states, “[The] U.S. Mint switched to using mostly zinc in 1982. They may not know that making all those pennies has a serious environmental impact, from raw ore, to smelter, to mint, and then to banks before finally being dropped on the street or dumped into a coin kiosk or a fountain…Each mint facility conducts monthly environmental compliance audits and aims to reduce direct emissions by 33 percent by 2020. The Denver Mint is already 100 percent wind-powered, and the power-hungry stamping presses now have a sleep mode to reduce power consumption when not in use.”

Perhaps you consider it to be petty, but as an April 2020 Environmental Pollution article begins, “Superstition has it that tossing coins into wells or fountains brings good luck, thereby causing a potential accumulation of microbially contaminated metal particles in the water. Here, we characterized the microbiota and the resistance profile in biofilm on such coins and their surrounding sediments.”

The article concludes, “We suggest that the surface of the coins might offer a niche for antibiotic resistance genes and fecal bacteria to survive, and, thus, tossed coins are a potential source and vector for ARGs into the surrounding environment.”

Kathiann Kowalski is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and the National Association of Science Writers. She published the article “How We Chose to Pay Has Hidden Costs for the Planet” in Science News Explores.

Kowalski wrote, “For money, raw materials go into each step of something that is ‘made’ or assembled. Fuels are the raw materials for energy to manufacture products and transport them. More energy goes into using products. Recycling or disposal also requires energy, plus water, soil, or other materials.”

Further in the article, Kowalski acknowledges, “Most countries use a variety of coins. Their ingredients vary. So does their ability to withstand wear. Most countries also use bank notes, or bills, with different values. What these are made from also varies.”

Focusing on the 2016 bank note composition switch from cotton-fiber paper to plastic in Great Britain, Kowalski writes, “Their [PE Engineering (now Sphera)] 2013 report found polymer bills were greener. They simply last longer… That cuts the overall need for raw materials and energy.”

Kowalski also notes that a Shonfield researcher concluded you don’t have to create nearly as many bank notes with plastic notes. Plastic bills are thinner than paper; the thickness of these notes impacts the need for raw materials and energy, and since more of them can be put into an ATM, this keeps the machines full and takes less servicing needed.

Nicole Jonker is an economist with De Nederlandsche Bank in Amsterdam. Jonker said, “If you want to use cash, please do so,” continuing, “And use the coins you get as change for making payments instead of storing them in a piggy bank or jar.”

Kowalski wrote of Jonker, “Jonker’s group considered the raw materials and steps in making metal coins and cotton fiber bank notes. The researchers added in energy and other impacts as cash is moved around and used. And they looked at the disposal of worn-out bills and coins. About 31 percent of those impacts came from making coins. A much bigger share — 64 percent — came from energy for running ATMs and transporting bills and coins. Fewer ATMs and more renewable energy could reduce those impacts, the study concluded.”

The same article addressed non-cash transactions as well. According to the Jonker study, each debit card transaction has about the same impact on climate change as 90 minutes of lighting from an eight-watt low-energy light bulb. There also were some other impacts from pollution, the depletion of raw materials, and more.

Humans have mined metals since the 6th millennium B.C. Metal coins have been around since about 600 B.C. and have increased in output and usage ever since. Is the size of the footprint coins and bank notes are making on the environment sufficiently significant to rethink what we are doing? Taiwan has cracked the lid on this numismatic Pandora’s box. Will it grow legs or crawl back into the box?

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