Making pennies wastes natural resources and is toxic to people and the environment - Pennies are 3 percent copper, and 97 percent zinc and are primarily made from virgin ore. ... The process of refining both metals can release sulfur dioxide (SO2), lead and zinc into the environment.
The penny wastes money.
Mint produced almost 5 billion pennies—more than 60 percent of all coins made annually—at a cost more than twice their worth. A significant portion of the cost is for the zinc that makes pennies, which is why the zinc industry is paying its lobbyists six figures to keep the penny in production.
"The high zinc content in recently minted pennies poses a potentially serious problem when ingested," O'Hara said. "Most likely a single coin would pass through the stomach, but if it does lodge there, it can quickly become toxic.
Christine Knobel, Nicole Tan and Darin Reyes spent a semester analyzing the information they could find to make an assessment of the penny's ecological footprint. Their conclusion? The true cost of making a penny adds up to much more than 1.43 cents.
You should keep all pre-1982 pennies. If you can distinguish between 1982 brass and zinc pennies, keep the brass ones. All wheat pennies are worth keeping. Keep all pennies (even recent ones) that appear to have something “off” about them — they may be error or die variety coins.
A penny costs more to produce than it is worth (even after the 1982 change from a 95 percent copper composition to 97.5 percent zinc), so the U.S. loses tens of millions of dollars a year minting them; the sheer cost of lost time spent hunting for pennies, waiting in line behind someone else hunting for pennies, and ...
It can be easy to look at those pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters and not think that they can be deadly to a child. But Dr. Kubiczek-Love says coins can easily lodge in the airway and the esophagus. Ingesting a coin can lead to impaction, which is what happens when the coin isn't passed through the stool.
80 to 90 % of times, a coin or a small penny will pass on its own, causing no damage as it is round with soft edges, and eventually come out with stool. The coin passes through the digestive system and is expelled within a day or two.
If your little penny popper is acting fine, they'll probably be fine. "Eighty to 90 percent of the time, coins pass unobstructed," says Dr. Kettlehake. "They usually pass in less than four to five days, often within 48 hours."
1943 Bronze Lincoln
"The most valuable Lincoln cent sold privately in 2010 for $1.7 million," said Stone. In order to preserve copper for the war effort, the U.S. Mint switched to making pennies from zinc-coated steel planchets, instead of the usual bronze coin blanks, Stone explained.
The United States Mint manufactured more than seven billion pennies in the 2019 fiscal year, at loss of nearly $70 million. Canada stopped making pennies in 2012, following other countries, including Britain and Australia, which already abandoned their smallest-denomination coins.
Copper Pennies Are NOT 100% Copper!
It wasn't until 1982 that pennies started getting minted with 97.5% zinc. (Surprisingly, there are many people in the US that don't know that the modern day penny is zinc. ) Copper Pennies Are NOT Worth Copper Spot Price!
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