I read somewhere, I thought it was in a post by a user to the board, that machines are used to remove coins from garbage after it comes off the garbage trucks. Is this true? Is it just me or is the board search function incredibly frustrating? I can't search for exact phrases, or posts that have two words together, only OR functions. Grrrrrrrr, this is the second time I haven't been able to find something.
I find it unlikely. Although, I'm sure there may be a landfill somewhere that has tried it. Our landfill just dumps the bags out of the truck and runs over it to compress it.
Yes, since there was the story that I read many years back in a brick-and-mortar newspaper of the woman who accidentally threw away several thousand/million in current issue US bills. She found the money, with the help of landfill employees, the point is they didn't start looking 'til she came to them. That will teach you to store your cash in black garbage bags (as the woman did.) If they're not going to pull out that much cash, they certainly can't be bothered with coins. I think I may have read about these magical money machines of the dump on wikipedia, but I can't find the reference now. Hopefully someone deleted it if it's not true. If it's still there, and it's not true, and you find it, please delete it for me, because I can't find it, or at least flag it as unreferenced.
Some waste haulers do sort trash for recycling purposes (watch Dirty Jobs on Discover Channel), and some is hand-sorted as it goes down a conveyer belt. So, it IS possible that coins could be found on the metal-sorting line.
While I fully agree that many companies do make an effort to recycle what they can, I'm sure money that is found is purely coincidental and I'm even willing to bet that most companies probably even let the employees keep what they find (up to a limit).
That makes a lot of sense. There's a big difference between the incidental finding of small coinage and a systematic effort to recover it. As others have said... I just can't imagine it would be cost effective. Plus it would rob future metal-detecting numismatists of a lot of fun !
The archaeologists of the future will definitely not have as much fun digging up our landfills as present day archaeologists enjoy digging up the outhouses of yestercentury and buried towns of yestermillenium. Today's landfills are engineered to be managed until they are inert. We compact them to the point that they can be used for some other purpose (such as golf courses and mini ski mountains). While some items may see some preservation, most will have been corroded/distorted beyond recognition. One example is that landfills recycle their leachate back through the landfill for years. They are designed with a liner to catch all leachate from the landfill to protect the groundwater system. This leachate is stored and returned to the landfill (allowing evaporation to remove the excess water). This leachate has a very low pH which dissolves and contains hazardous heavy metals. Due to the diversion of high BTU waste (like newspaper, yard waste, plastics, etc...), current landfills take 10+ years before the pH levels of the leachate even approach neutral. Imagine what a modern coin must look like after 10 years of constant exposure to an acid solution.
I'm thinkin' you'll find estate-sale wheaties on e-bay as SGS MS69 RD. All kidding aside - great info, gatzdon. Thanks !
They also use magnets to pull out canadian coins/euros/etc..., and yet, I still get them in my rolls of dimes. Go figure that one out.
Some communities that use trash to fuel incinerators for power generation do recover coins from the ash left over after it's burned. Zinc cents would not survive the process, but the coppernickel coins do. And I believe the copper cents would as well.
I have a car wash. "Treasure hunting" the vacuum debris nets about $2400. a year plus LOTS of jewelry(sterling/gold rings ear rings, charms, etc.) I made a sifter from 1/4 in mesh wire and just dump the vacuum debris in it. Dirt goes through, trash comes to the top, pick up the money!!! About 15-20,000 cents, but the rest nickles, dimes quarters, a rare half, and a few dollars, casino chips, you just wouldn't believe what peaople let the vacuum suck up!!! lol
No way! You're joking, right? They wouldn't possibly be actually looking for coins if the only coins they look for come from one year. If they find faked 1943 "Copper" cents, or the un-plated (post-mint-alteration-free) steel cents, it is because they are removing steel to recycle, not because they are looking for coins. Did you mean this as a joke? If not, where are you getting your information? ~
Not bad. I should start vacuuming cars. The vacuum might accidently slip into the change pile though. :whistle:
