# Why does Canada care about its paper currency being unrippable? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 6, 2024, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523 "2024-03-06T06:12:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/41 "2024-03-08T00:15:45Z")
> [@stui\_magpie](#): > > The downside of the $2 coins is they’re much harder to tuck into a strippers garter. Yeah, but Canadians never really did that. We get lap dances for $20 instead. Used to be $10, but inflation… ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/42 "2024-03-08T00:31:43Z")
> [@Ynnad](#): > > So I would imagine this is a popular late night challenge in Canadian bars. “Tear this bill in half and you can have it” or something like that. Have any of our Canadian friends experienced this? No. The person would just look at you like you were deranged. You’d have to find some dude in the bar that had never handled the banknotes that have been in circulation for the past 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/43 "2024-03-08T00:34:06Z")
Or an American. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/44 "2024-03-08T01:16:16Z")
I remember seeing years ago a documentary (perhaps on PBS) that showed how the US Department of the Treasury tested its currency. One of the tests was to crumple up a dollar bill into a tiny wad and then to flatten it out. The requirement was that the bill still had to be usable after. I don’t think the polymer Canadian note would pass such a test but then different countries value different things. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/45 "2024-03-08T02:16:08Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I don’t think the polymer Canadian note would pass such a test Why not? From experience, they bounce right back from severe crumpling. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/46 "2024-03-08T04:47:40Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > From experience, they bounce right back from severe crumpling. I’ve had bills with a sharp crease in them. While I was able to flatten them, I’m not sure I’d describe it as “bouncing right back”. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/47 "2024-03-08T09:29:34Z")
Do people still “Spock” the Fives? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/48 "2024-03-08T11:09:21Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > I’ve had bills with a sharp crease in them. But why would having a sharp crease make it unusable? ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/49 "2024-03-08T12:07:17Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > But why would having a sharp crease make it unusable? It doesn’t. It was the phrase “bounce right back” that I felt was an exaggeration, in my case. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/50 "2024-03-08T12:09:36Z")
> [@Ynnad](#): > > So I would imagine this is a popular late night challenge in Canadian bars. “Tear this bill in half and you can have it” Back when people smoked cigarettes in bars, I won a few bets with US Twenties. I stopped doing it after someone got a nasty burn. I’d take someone’s $20 and bet them they couldn’t burn a hole it, using a cigarette, while I held the bill. I’d wrap the bill tightly around their forearm and tell them if they could burn a hole in the bill with a cigarette, I’d give them $40. If not, the twenty was mine. Their arm would act as a heat sink, and the bill would never burn. If they tried long enough they’d burn themselves. One guy kept puffing on his cigarette, keeping the tip red hot, and ignoring the pain. When I saw how badly he fucked up his arm I stopped doing the “trick”, but before that I won many times. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/51 "2024-03-08T12:15:51Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > That’s how you make a dollar coin work: you give no other option, and you don’t listen to complaints. You force it, by stopping production of $1 bills. We seemingly can’t do that here in the 'ole U.S. of A. That’s what we should have done with the metric system way back in seventies, but the whining and crying of the hoi polloi prevented it. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/52 "2024-03-08T13:11:08Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Why does Canada care if their bills are destroyed by wear-and-tear or the elements sooner rather than later? I’m sure there are replacement costs to consider, but I suspect that many would just be lost forever. I hadn’t thought about that last sentence before. It seems that a government would want to minimize wear and tear that results in high replacement cost (costing a small percentage of face value), while at the same time a government would be just fine with wear and tear that results in complete loss of the bill (saving the full face value of the bill). I suspect designing currency that would randomly self destruct would undermine confidence to the point that they wouldn’t be able to give the stuff away. But if it were done sneakily and only a tiny percentage dissolved, that would be pure profit. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/53 "2024-03-08T13:43:07Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I remember seeing years ago a documentary (perhaps on PBS) that showed how the US Department of the Treasury tested its currency. One of the tests was to crumple up a dollar bill into a tiny wad and then to flatten it out. There is a special device involved. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/v4oi-IYj3xI/hqdefault.jpg "IGT NBS crumpling tester for banknote papers") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4oi-IYj3xI) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/54 "2024-03-08T13:57:30Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > I guess that’s good, but I assume Canada pays more than a pretty penny extra for these upgraded bills. This assumption isn’t correct. The polymer bills have a much longer lifespan. That translates into lower costs, since the Bank of Canada doesn’t have to manufacture as many of them. There’s also the disposal costs. Since paper notes have shorter lifespans, more of the paper notes have to be shipped to the Bank of Canada in Ottawa (or regional BoC branches) for secure destruction. Those transport costs are significant, particularly in a big country like Canada. Longer lifespan for paper notes means lower end-of-life transportation costs. Overall, the environmental footprint of paper notes is lower than for poly notes, which is an indication of lower cost as well. For more info, see the Bank’s report: > **[The lifespan of a bank note](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/bank-note-series/frontiers/lifespan-bank-note/#:~:text=%245%20note%E2%80%94approximately%208%20years,notes%E2%80%94at%20least%2016%20years)** > > At the Bank of Canada, we assessed the life cycle of bank notes to confirm that polymer notes have a smaller environmental footprint than paper notes. Polymer notes have a longer life and then are recycled. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/55 "2024-03-08T14:08:20Z")
I assume the polymer ones are much more difficult to counterfeit which must add value as well. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2024, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/56 "2024-03-08T16:03:50Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I assume the polymer ones are much more difficult to counterfeit Especially since you can imbed a hologram in them. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/57 "2024-03-09T01:41:08Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > while at the same time a government would be just fine with wear and tear that results in complete loss of the bill (saving the full face value of the bill). Yeah, that was the point of the OP. As the thread continued, it seemed implicit that the costs of replacement outweigh those lost forever. In other words, the lost bills don’t pay for the replacements. It does lead to the question of how much. Do we know the answer to how many damaged US bills are replaced versus lost? I assume the only way to replace a damaged one would be to take it to a bank, so there may be stats on that. But I’m not sure how we would know how many are lost. What percentage of bills out there even make it back to a bank? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/58 "2024-03-09T12:07:52Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Ah, yes, ignore the constituency I would say listen, and then make a judgement based on all factors. People get used to a particular denomination / format. Fine. Then we look at the rest of the world and see that, if you just rip out one denomination and put in a new one, people complain before and then nobody cares the day after. And thats alongside the numerous good reasons to have coins instead of notes for small denominations. The transition to cashless is now likely to happen before the demise of the $1 note, making it all moot. But it shouldn’t have persisted this long. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/59 "2024-03-09T12:15:53Z")
I just want to add my IMHO that I really hate polymer bank notes. I get why they exist and they are “better” in important ways. But I really hate the feel of them. There is something really nice about a crisp US $20 that a CAD $20 lacks. Just my US $0.02 ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2024, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523/60 "2024-03-09T12:59:58Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > Yeah, that was the point of the OP. As the thread continued, it seemed implicit that the costs of replacement outweigh those lost forever. In other words, the lost bills don’t pay for the replacements. It’s worth noting that, in Canada at least, the actual lifetime of a polymer banknote has turned out to be [even better than they originally assumed it would be, and not by a small margin:](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/banknotes/bank-note-series/frontiers/lifespan-bank-note/#:~:text=%245%20note%E2%80%94approximately%208%20years,notes%E2%80%94at%20least%2016%20years) > For the life-cycle assessment, we conservatively estimated that polymer notes would last two and a half times longer than paper notes, based on the experience of other countries. > > The vast majority of notes in circulation now are polymer notes, and our own [research](https://www.centralbanking.com/central-banks/currency/banknotes/3368841/canadas-polymer-versus-paper-substrate-cycle) and experience show that they last about four times longer than paper notes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-canada-care-about-its-paper-currency-being-unrippable/998523.md?page=4)