WORRIED South Koreans are putting banknotes in their microwaves and washing machines, damaging the bills in their attempts to cleanse them of the coronavirus.

The country’s central bank said Friday that people had exchanged three times as much burnt money in the past six months as in the same period last year, much of it thought to be from botched efforts to disinfect bills.

A Bank of Korea (BOK) official said the amount of money returned to the bank after being burnt between January and June had risen to 1.32 billion won (US$1.1 million) from 480 million in the same period last year.

“There was a considerable amount of bills being burnt in the microwave ovens in the first half of this year,” the official said, referring to efforts to prevent the coronavirus.

In a statement, the bank said overall a total of 2.69 trillion won worth of damaged notes and coins were destroyed and of that it exchanged 6.5 billion won worth in the first half of 2020.

Besides using microwaves or ovens to heat the bills, some people also put them in their washing machines, the bank said.

In one example given by the bank, a person surnamed Um came in to redeem at least 35.5 million won in notes damaged after he had put them in the washing machine.

Um only recovered 22.9 million won, losing at least 35 percent of the original money, which he had received as condolence donations for funeral expenses for a family member, the BOK said.

Another case involved a person surnamed Kim, who put 5.2 million won in the microwave to sterilize the money against COVID-19. But the damage was limited so Kim was able to redeem most of the money.

(SD-Agencies)