Penny

The penny is becoming essentially worthless in today's society. Think about it. How many times have you been cleaning and found a penny and, instead of setting it aside, threw it into the garbage along with your other trash? How many pennies do you have, right now, in your car, in the bottom of your purse or in your couch?

The U.S. Mint estimates that there are currently about 140 billion pennies in circulation. It's said that 27% of pennies end up in the trash, vacuumed up, swept up or generally dropped. That's 37,800,000,000 pennies or 378,000,000 dollars every year that people just "lose" or discard.

It's something to think about the next time you scoop a penny into your dust pan.