Is there really any reason we can't just make pennies out of plastic instead? Personally, I haven't used cash in ages anyway so I'm really neither here nor there on running out of pennies, but it seems like if the problem is just that they cost too much to manufacture, make them out of something cheaper.
Canada made pennies out of aluminum for several years before abolishing them.
Canada banned single-use plastic bags at grocery checkouts a while back. Now everybody brings reusable cloth bags or other reusable containers to the store. It's really no big deal, and it does eliminate unsightly decaying plastic bags flapping randomly in trees and on fences.
Meanwhile Amazon has an 80-count bag of 4-gallon/15-L bathroom plastic bags selling for $9. So for my household what was free now costs $9, with zero difference in plastic output to the landfill.
TFA states that scammers read the card barcodes without buying them - so whoever then buys the card gets a dud. The only defence is not to buy gift cards at all.
Why don't stores put the cards behind glass or on the wall behind the counter?
True.
Only eating bugs, a switch to public transportation (with the resulting loss of freedom) and a massive wealth transfer from first to third world nations can solve that.
You left out further concentration of control by the central government, but "loss of freedom" could cover that.
EPA calls tetrachloroethylene perchloroethylene or PCE, which only has a partial ban being phased on. Trichloroethylene is getting the near complete ban, but just like in Europe a lot of industry will switch to PCE (called PER in the EU).
TCE is a known carcinogen and PCE only a likely one, but that seems more a question of time than a fundamental difference to me.
PCE decays to TCE (and 1,2-DCE and vinyl chloride...) in the environment.
Quantum Mechanics is a lovely introduction to Hilbert Spaces! -- Overheard at last year's Archimedeans' Garden Party
