Is There $2 Million At The Iron County Landfill?!!?

We had a fun discussion on the radio this morning, talking about how it's costing us anywhere between 2 to 4 cents to make 1 penny, and we wondered if maybe we should stop making pennies, and perhaps their usefulness was over.

I didn't think much of it until later in the morning on Tradio when I got this call: (Transcript)

I really enjoy your comments this morning. You know the early morning show and all. Remember when you were talking about coins and how much those cost to be made and things like that?

So, I drive a trash truck. And you know, once a while trash gets knocked over or the wind blows it over and stuff like that. So I have to get out and pick up the, you know, trash and everything. You won't believe how many coins, nickels, dimes, and quarters that people throw away. Yeah. And they just get hauled to the landfill.

Now, I'm way old school, I know this, but according to our caller here people are literally throwing away money. The thought of throwing away money just blows me away. I mean, sure, I've blown cash before, and made some foolish purchases, but never in my life have I ever thought, “hey, I think I'll just throw this money away.”

Well, according to our caller, he thinks a lot of money has made its way to the landfill over the years. How much? Just listen:

Wait?!!? Did he really say $2 million in coins at the landfill? Yes he did, and he had a point to make telling me, “think about it. If I'm the one that finds it every now and then, you know, How will it be with all trash truck drivers? Do we have picking up and then throwing away pulling and you know, just and I'm only driving 2 days down the week and it's like, yeah, there's a lot of change going right out to the landfill.”

He wasn't the only one with tales to tell about loose change. The next caller had another fascinating story. This caller told me, “Hi, good morning. I wanted to say I know that guy. But me myself, I do half cash, half credit card transactions. Just out of my truck alone in a year I'll pull a change out or it falls out when I clean it out, I come up with in between $800 and $1000 just in change. When I take it, yeah.”

$800 to $1,000 a year. To me that's not throw away money, either. But $2 million!

I have no idea if there really is that much loose change floating around at the Iron County Landfill. But our original caller wasn't backing down...

So if you see me going out to the landfill a little more than usual, you'll know why.