'One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Treasure' Proves True For A Waste Management Company That Has Recovered Over $10 Million In Thrown-Away Coins

There's an old saying that goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure," and a waste management company in Pennsylvania proves this to be true, recovering over $10 million in discarded coins. 

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Pennsylvania waste collecting company Ash Processing at Reworld, located in Morrisville, Bucks County, has collected over $10 million from discarded coins. Fox Business reported that the company aims to "bridge the divide between trash and treasure" by sorting through piles of incinerated trash for any loose change they can find. In addition, they also operate facilities that burn trash to generate fuel. Rebecca Guardino, Director of Ash Processing at Reworld, told Jeff Flock from Fox Business, who visited the sorting facility, that they usually get an assortment of materials, but "This is about the quarter-sized particles where we usually get … a little bit of hardware, but mostly quarters."

Guardino had shown Flock around the sorting facility and explained how the whole process worked. The process starts with the machines that sift through the huge piles of incinerated trash. The machines have small round holes that force the coins to fall through, where they're then sorted into bins. From there, Guardino explained that the coins go through a washing station and are spread out onto a rack to dry. Guardino tells Flock, "This allows us to better sort the coins, to determine what coins are in good condition or have been damaged, but it also lets us know which denominations we’re dealing with." 

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According to Reworld, Americans throw away nearly $68 million of change each year. Why? Because nowadays, coins are considered as good as junk for many Americans. Places that used to take coins, like toll booths and buses, now also accept card and online payment methods, and the U.S. quarter has lost most of its buying power compared to the U.S. dollar. Robert Whaples, an economics professor from Wake Forest University, explains why coins are discarded nowadays. "If you lost a $100 bill you'd look for it. If you lost a $20 bill you'd look for it. If you lost a book, you'd look for it," he added, "But a penny, you're just not going to look for it."

According to Reworld, these discarded coins get sucked up by vacuums and end up in local landfills. It was in 2017 that Reworld started collecting change after noticing how many coins were appearing in the trash. Once the coins have been collected out of the trash, they are then restored to be reintroduced back into the economy via local banks. However, Whaples believes that the government should stop making the penny because, unlike dollar notes, coins are harder to circulate through the economy as most coins stay hidden at the bottom of people's purses or in their homes. When did you last look underneath your sofa cushions and car seats? You'll likely find coins that have been left there for ages. MSN reported that the U.S. Mint spent $707 million making coins in 2023. 

However, just because Reworld gathers between $500,000 to $1 million in coins a year to reintroduce into the economy doesn't mean that these coins are actually wanted even by banks. According to MSN, Capital One, TD Bank, and PNC have removed their coin-counting machines due to low customer use.   

But employees at Reworld love finding coins, especially buffalo nickels made between 1913 and 1938. Angelo Geraci, Reworld's operations supervisor, shared, "As a child, I used to get excited about buffalo nickels, I thought they were rare. Here, we have jars and jars of buffalo nickels." 

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