While money is known to be one of the filthiest objects in the world, Australia's dollar kind of helps solve that problem. As the fifth-largest traded currency worldwide, Australian money is made of an unusual--though not uncommon--material: plastic. The U.S. Treasury may do well to take note of those cash benefits.
It's the first country in the world to make all of its note currency out of plastic. Plastic stays cleaner. It's also recyclable. But the Australian cash is ingenious for other reasons: The polymer material makes Australian money much more secure against counterfeiting. And while the U.S. touts the longevity of linen, Australian cash may cost twice as much to produce initially -- but it lasts about four times longer than conventional paper or fibrous cash notes. In the United States, the average $5-dollar bill has a shelf life of only about 16 months before it's headed for the trash. And for tropical climates, cash in the form of bank notes have even less of a lifetime.
While the legal tender may not hold up well to repeated uses of Lysol, plastic currency stays a lot cleaner. It makes sense: Without all those tiny fibers to grab every germ on the planet, smooth plastic naturally stays cleaner. But for germophobes, rest assured that plastic surface is far easier to clean. If you plan on keeping it around long. Despite its benefits, roughly 22 countries use the plastic cash produced by Note Printing Australia -- a subsidiary of Reserve Bank of Australia -- including Mexico and, more recently, Chile.
None of the world's most powerful nations currently use plastic money for bank notes. The world's biggest economic powers including the United States, Japan and European Union, all adamantly refuse to switch from 'paper' to plastic. Some insist the reason is psychological -- that plastic's got an implicit 'cheap' factor that the biggest powers dislike, despite the attributes of polymer money. But plastic's got much better longevity.
Australia introduced its new plastic currency in 1988, when the Reserve Bank of Australia created polypropylene polymer banknotes manufactured by Note Printing Australia. Fast-forward to current -- where all Australian notes, all the country's cash excepting coins -- are now made of polymer. Plastic currency went into general use throughout the country in 1992.
There have been some other stabs at alternate materials used for note currencies. DuPont's Tyvek -- a polymer comprised of polyethylene fibres and branded under the 'Tyvek' name was tried out by the American Bank Note Company, in the early 1980s, to be used as currency. But Tyvek didn't prove to be the winner -- after ink smudging and a more fragile nature proved to be issues for notes that needed to stay in circulation.
Just two countries, Costa Rica and Haiti, issued Tyvek bank notes as currency. Test notes made of Tyvek were subsequently produced for four more countries including Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela -- but that cash never got put into circulation. And for those lucky enough to run across a special edition produced by English printers Bradbury Wilkinson, hang onto them. The version of Tyvek that was marketed as 'Bradvek' for the Isle of Man in 1983 hasn't been produced in a long while. Currency collectors love those Isle of Man special editions.
As for Australia specifically, the country seems to have some common sense when it comes to cash and features other countries might do well to take note of: Each Australian bank note is sized according to denomination, and color changes help additionally make the currency denominations easy to spot. Color coding always helps the scenario, in a country that doesn't depend solely on tints and shades of 'green': The AU $5 note is pink, AU $10 blue, AU $20 red, AU $50 yellow and AU $100 seems to be a nod to those 'greenbacks'. While cash remains same height, the money has a different length depending on value: AU $5 is the smallest and shortest note, and AU $100 the biggest and longest cash.
Australia's size differences were meant to aid the visually impaired. But it probably doesn't prove too bad for the alcohol-impaired, and that end of the evening cab ride, either.