The Hard Life of Dollar Bills

Every day people around the world use one-dollar bills. The U. S. government prints billions of them every year! People sometimes call these bills “ paper money. ” But bills are not really made of paper. They are printed on special cloth. Seventy-five percent of the cloth is cotton— just like the cotton in your favorite jeans!

The rest of the cloth is linen. This cloth is much stronger than paper. Oh, and the bills' ink is special too. It doesn't wash off! The front of the bill has black ink. But the back of the bill is printed in green. Green fades less quickly than other colors. This green ink gives all U. S. dollars a nickname—greenbacks!

Dollar bills are very sturdy. But they get passed from hand to hand. They're folded in wallets and shoved into pockets. They get torn and wet. Over time they wear out. An average dollar bill lasts less than six years. So the U. S. government has to replace worn-out bills. They print new bills to replace the old ones. The new bills go to banks for people to use.

Banks collect the old bills and send them back to the government. Workers shred the old bills to destroy them. Yep, that's right. Money gets destroyed! In fact, the United States shreds about ten billion dollars a year. That's enough waste to fill 750 dump trucks! In the past this waste got dumped in a landfill.

But today getting rid of greenbacks is a much greener process. The government recycles a lot of old paper money. Some shredded money goes into roofing material. Some goes into home insulation. Other bills become fuel for power plants to make electricity for homes. Oh, and some paper money becomes filling for mattresses. So you could even be sleeping on money! Other bills are sent to farms that use them for compost. I bet the soil is very rich in those gardens! I usually spend my dollar bills as soon as I receive them. But I didn't know that dollar bills have such a hard life!