By FRANCESCA MOLD
A multibillion-dollar fortune is to be sliced into tiny pieces, stuffed into rubbish bags and buried.
When the Reserve Bank changed from paper money to the plastic version last year, it kept $2.5 billion of the old notes in storage instead of destroying them.
The stockpile of paper money was held in case banks were inundated with customers withdrawing large sums of money to avoid the possibility of being left cashless by millennium bug mishaps.
But the transition to Year 2000 went smoothly for banks and customers, most of whom seemed happy to leave their money in the vaults. This means the unneeded mountain of money now has to be destroyed.
Usually, the destruction process is handled by a machine that sorts through used notes, automatically picking out any in poor condition and shredding them.
But because such a large amount is involved, the $2.5 billion will be destroyed manually by Reserve Bank staff, who will feed it through a shredding machine.
The money will be chopped into extremely small pieces, put into rubbish bags and dumped in landfills.
Reserve Bank deputy governor Rod Carr said trading banks had been offered the chance to request extra notes.
But by last night none had taken up the offer.
He said the Reserve Bank gave $247 million to banks on the last three days of December, compared with $240 million in the same period in 1998.
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