Polymer banknotes in Canada

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

As a polymer note collector I wonder how likely it is that some of all banknotes in the next series are made of plastic.

An emerging trend is to make low-denomination bills of polymer while keeping paper for high-denomination banknotes. Mexico has polymer 20 and 50 peso notes, Chile will have 3 polymer banknotes in its upcoming 2010 series, Nicaragia is about to issue two polymer low-denomination banknotes.

Low-denomination notes last anywhere from 8 months to 2 years, while their polymer versions circulate for 4-5 years. I would love to see $5 and $10 bills made of polymer. The capacity is already avaialble in this country - CBN has been producing polymer banknotes since the late 1990s for Northern Ireland (Northern Bank), Zambia, Guatemala, and a few others.

It would be a nice idea and I would suggest this to the BoC: 

use polymer for 5 and 10 dollars notes and hybrid notes for higher denomination.  Hybrid note is a combination of paper for most part of the note and a small part of polymer showing as a clear window.  Many countries has already switched on hybrid note for their high denomination notes:  Bulgaria, Samoa,  Tonga, Kazakhstan, Fiji...
These notes are superb...
And incidentally:  I hope that the BoC will not give us a fallacious reason for not using polymer as :  "We don't have the technology" or worse:  "These notes are too expensive for the BoC".  It's no all the richest countries in the world that use polymer notes:  Zambia, Bangladesh, Romania, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Vietnam...

Desired outcome: Canadians use bank notes with confidence

Strategy: Reduce counterfeiting below a clearly defined threshold

Outcome goals: Reduce counterfeiting to below 100 counterfeits detected annually for each million genuine notes in circulation by 2009, and prepare to start issuing a new series of bank notes in 2011

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/annual/2008/currency08.pdf

And incidentally:  I hope that the BoC will not give us a fallacious reason for not using polymer as :  "We don't have the technology" or worse:  "These notes are too expensive for the BoC".  It's no all the richest countries in the world that use polymer notes:  Zambia, Bangladesh, Romania, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Vietnam...

Well, climate apparently has a lot to do with it.  With the exception of Romania, consider all the countries in your list, and others that use polymer notes.  Very hot and very humid all year round.  Those kind of conditions will wear out paper bank notes very quickly.  Canada's climate is at the opposite end of that spectrum, making paper notes last much longer.