Thanks to the Bank of Canada, we have some lovely new polymer bills. I know there are a lot of Canadians out there who are not the biggest fans of the new polymer bills. They stick together, are kind of slippery individually and some of them smell like maple syrup, but I like them. They're pretty, look neat with their see-through area and the heads are back in the correct direction. Also, the new bills are a lot cleaner then the old paper bills. Money is filthy. Studies show that up to 85% of Canadian bills (and up to 90% of American bills) contain traces of cocaine. At least with these new "plastic" bills we can clean them.
Polymer banknotes are made from biaxially oriented polypropylene. In laymen terms, the plastic is stretched against a machine in two different directions. It's basically the same process used to create certain types of food packaging. Polymer bank notes were developed in 1988 by the Reserve Bank of Australia as an attempt to prevent counter-fitting, and in 1996 Australia switched completely to the polymer bank notes. In addition to Australia and Canada; Vietnam, Romania, Israel and New Zealand are just a few other countries that use polymer bank notes.It was sure a lot easier as a kid when you could think the money did grow on trees. Now we have to work hard to have any money, and since money is now made from long dead microscopic organisms instead of trees, it's no longer a renewable resource. Oh well, soon enough money will only be lines of computer code, paper/plastic bills will no longer exist. Let's just hope that Skynet will only be a figment of James Cameron's imagination.