Miami Valley Coin Club

Lost: $61.8 Million In Coins Each Year

According to a recent report from Bloomberg, we lose $61.8 million worth of coins each year. Coins get sucked into vacuums, lost in the grass, fall out of pockets while fumbling for car keys, or are sometimes purposely thrown away because they are dirty or just stuck together.

There is a company just outside of Philadelphia, Covanta Holding Corp., that operates an incinerator that burns garbage to generate electricity. Last year the company recovered about $360,000 in nickels, dimes, and quarters. The company uses powerful magnets to collect scrap metal after burning trash and have developed a technique to separate the change from other burnt metal.

The coins are sooty when collected and in the past have been sold back to the U.S. Mint. I’m not saying we should all head for the nearest landfill but then again…