Only Under California Toxics Law : Cash May Be Hazardous to Our Health

SAN FRANCISCO — There’s a new warning from California: Cash may be hazardous to your health.

“When it first came to my attention, I thought they were pulling my leg,” Rich Wilcoxon, chief of the state Toxic Substances Control Division, said. “You don’t think of money as being hazardous. If you handle it properly it doesn’t have to be.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco shreds two tons of old $1 to $100 bills each day. Workers who prepare the money for shipping must wear gloves, masks and special clothing to avoid skin contact, spokesman John Scadding said.

The Federal Reserve used to bury the money in landfills, but state authorities were worried that groundwater could become tainted by the copper and lead contained in the ink that gives paper money its fine detail.

Within months, buried money begins to deteriorate and lead could leach into the ground and contaminate drinking water, Wilcoxon said.

“There was just concern that here in California, where we get relatively little water, that the substances that we put in the ground could concentrate,” Scadding said. “But you would have to have it concentrated in enormous quantities before it is toxic. Routine handling will not hurt you. The thing is that California standards are 15 times more stringent than federal standards.”

Federal officials used to burn the shredded cash until California officials complained about the air pollution, Wilcoxon said in a telephone interview from his Sacramento office.

Wilcoxon said federal officials won’t have the same troubles with money now being printed.

“Right now the ink in the new money that is being printed doesn’t contain the same amount of lead as the old money,” he said. “So when they start destroying the new money, they won’t have to take it to a Class 1 toxic waste dump. In fact with the new money, we have told the Department of Treasury they can dispose of that in any landfill.”

Scadding said he was unsure whether other states required special handling for shredded money. “It’s my understanding that most states use the EPA standards,” he said.

Other substances declared toxic under California’s strict regulations for hazardous materials include shredded telephone poles and autos, Wilcoxon said.

A wood preservative in telephone poles and the lead in cars make them unacceptable for normal dumping, he said.