Criminals Beware! Plastic Money can Foil Your Plans

Forgive me for being "flushed" with excitement about this story, but it appears that the new plastic 20 dollar bills that the Canadian government recently introduced have an unexpected benefit in catching criminals: they float. Which means that they can't be disposed of as you would normal currency. Not that I am ever predisposed to quickly rid myself of currency or even thought about how to do it when the police are at the front door. So if you are like me (and I do hope you are), you wonder how do criminals try to dispose of bills quickly? Well, the Global Montreal website reports

"When Quebec UPAC officers arrived in Laval in October to and [sic] search the apartment of Gilles Vaillancourt [Editor's note: the former mayor], his cousin, who happens to own the premises, panicked. According to reports, as the police were about to enter the building, Ginette Vaillancourt tried to flush a large wad of cash down the toilet. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that these were the new polymer notes - so instead of disintegrating, the bills floated - and eventually blocked the toilet."

Canadian criminals beware! You now need to find other options for rapid disposal of money. My favorite choice would a 5-gallon/40-liter tank of boiling tetralin, but that's just me being a polymer guy. However, I'm glad that Canadians are realizing a benefit of the new bills, as it doesn't seem like they were otherwise well received by the public.

And lastly, I don't think that the old "paper" bills would have "disintegrated" as the report suggests, or at least not very quickly. The toilet would have still become plugged. If any Canadians are willing to perform the necessary tests, I would be happy to pass on the results, or if you have the cash but are unwilling to perform the tests, I would be happy to run the experiments. "What's that? Now that the experiments are done you want the cash back? Why no, you see what happened was..."