Cash in the Trash

Finding the stray pennies, nickels and dimes our young hosts had dumped on counters, windowsills, end tables or any flat surface amused us one weekend many years ago. We scooped up the coins and dropped them into an unused fish bowl without comment. Obviously the young couple did not worry about their loose change. But since we had a young child prone to put stuff into their mouth, we gathered coins. By the end of our visit, the found coins more than half filled the fish bowl. Before we left, hubby hid a $20 bill under the pennies. A few weeks later the wife said, “days before the next paycheck, we emptied the bowl and found the $20. Thanks. We needed it.” The next time we visited they too had a young child and no loose change on flat surfaces. Maybe they learned the value of collected coins. Coins, pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, even half dollars seem too much of a bother for some folks to keep. They leave them on the table at the restaurant, toss them into a jar at home, pass them along to beggars or lose them in a couch. My father did that. He could not be bothered to count out the loose change he received and stuffed it in his pocket two or three times a day when he paid for gas and meals. He dropped the change in a jar and gave it away when the mood hit him. Still he did keep the coins. Some folks, according to WasteDive website, don’t keep loose change. They throw the coins in the trash. One formerly profligate man admitted, “I threw away the pennies and nickels until my dad took me to the bank with his jar of coins and left with a $100. That convinced me to toss them in a jar rather than the trash.” Not all are convinced. According to a report on the CBS news website, Americans throw away an estimated $62 million a year in coins. Yes, that is 62 followed with six zeroes! Those pennies add up! Some of those trashed coins come from old couches and chairs. Some come from the vacuum cleaner. Others are just lost. Covanta, a trash management and recycling company, recovers about $360,000 in coins each year as they sort metals, including coins. The company finds about 25 cents in every ton of waste it handles. They do not handle all the 250 million tons of trash in the United States of America. Smaller trash management companies do not have the resources to recycle; so many coins go into the landfill. Covanta also salvages trashed silverware, rings and other random objects that do not burn. There is cash in the trash! There is also cash at the airport. Often folks neglect to pick up their coins after being scanned by The Transportation Security Administration. The TSA in 2014 collected $675,000 in spare change left behind. Maybe folks just forget to scoop up the coins in their rush to catch a plane. Maybe they don’t care. Whatever the reason, TSA agents collect the coins passengers leave behind, turn them in for accounting and use the total to improve airport security. According to the most recent records, TSA has collected just shy of a million dollars each of the recent years: In 2023, they gathered $956,253.38 in coins. In 2022, it was $835,850.71 and in 2019, the TSA collected $926,030.44.TSA is not complaining about the “tips.” For everyone else, here is a big tip: toss your spare change in a jar for a month or two. You might be surprised at how much it will buy you or how grateful you or someone else will be for it just before payday.