Should We Bury the Penny?

Would we be better off if we got rid of the penny?

Most people toss theirs in fountains, or hoard them in piles at home rather than putting them back into the distribution system.

If you took all of the 30.5 billion pennies that Canada issued between 1908 and 2005 and lined them in a row, they would wrap around the earth 14 times. Even if you assume that one-third of the coins have now disappeared, there are still 600 pennies per Canadian, and the government has recently been churning out about 816 million more per year. Only 40 per cent of Ontarians still use pennies for purchases; women and those over age 66 are more likely to use them. Researchers estimate that keeping pennies in circulation is costing Canadians about $130 million per year in production, storage and various other costs, including those of banks and also the cost to the retailers. Also the environmental costs of processing and manufacturing the metal. Australia and New Zealand have already abandoned pennies, and there is a movement in the United States for it to do so as well. So what does everybody think about our pennies? Should we continue to waste our time searching for pennies in our coin purses, or just get rid of the penny?