I'm totally with us ditching the penny, but I really wish we had a paper (plastic) $1. Any time you break a $5 bill you're left with a pocket full of change!
"Us" in this case is Canada, and we've had polymer notes for years. And it's not at all unusual for people to still call it "paper money" because it had been paper for so very long. Heck, we still call the stuff we use to wrap and protect things "tin foil" even though it's been aluminum for my entire life (and new consumer electronics were still being made with vacuum tubes/thermionic valves, with tube testers in every hardware and drug store, when I was a kid).
American currency isn't paper. It's more akin to cloth than anything else. And you can go swimming with 300 in bills in the USA. They are not going to melt and will be just fine even if submerged for hours.
There are absolutely better materials to use, no argument there. But US paper currency are not even close to being fragile.
It's paper. It just happens to be a cotton/linen long-fibre pulp blend rather than, say, wood pulp. That's how most paper was made from the origins of the stuff, in the West at least; wood pulp and so forth are relatively new in the grand scheme of things.
I thought the same thing when Canada made the switch, but soon found out that while tracking down a hold paper $100 is a bit frustrating at times the added opulence from destroying something that will never be replaced brings my cigar experience to the next level.
At least in the US, bills are much different from regular printer paper, closer to fabric. As long as you're not taking them for a swim regularly, they should be fine. (That said, when I've lived in Germany, I very much enjoyed the existence of €1 and €2 coins -- I've written about it on here before, if you're willing to scroll very far back in my post history).
>I very much enjoyed the existence of €1 and €2 coins
Uggh. When I travel in Europe--especially Germany with its remaining heavy use of cash--I hate coinage that is sufficiently valuable that I can't just basically ignore it. The US seriously tried to do a dollar coin (the Susan B. Anthony)--which was arguably ill-conceived for at least a couple of reasons but I'm very happy with US coinage being basically loose change although I'd be happy to eliminate basically disposable pennies and maybe even nickels.
Though to tell the truth I normally use cash so seldom and/or at so few places in the US that it probably doesn't matter.
I forgot about the Sacagawea dollar which did solve the fact that the Susan B Anthony coins were too much like quarters. Haven't seen one in the wild for years though. I didn't even know the other two but they're apparently not in general circulation.
Vending machines in post offices were the only place I regularly received dollar coins. Since most other vending machines accepted them, I never had much trouble using them up. The post office has removed most vending machines now so pretty much the only way I'd ever end up with a dollar coin would be if I bought a roll from my bank.
Swiss-money is recycled plastic+paper, i even going to dive with 300sFr in my pocket, lots of hipster-micro-breweries down there...but crackers are not allowed.
