Washington ? It’s lurking out there in sock drawers and coffee cans, ash trays and cigar boxes, wicker baskets and coconut shells. And, yes, in piggy banks.

By design or neglect, Americans have tucked away loose change to the tune of an estimated $7.7 billion, enough to pay for the war in Afghanistan for nearly eight months.

Call them what you will  hoarders, accumulators or simply disorganized. An estimated 56 percent of Americans build up their change rather than spend it day to day. As many as 77 percent have a jug of coins around the house, worth an average $30 to $50.

The figures are all courtesy of the folks at Coinstar, who have turned the coin-caching habit into a business by installing machines at supermarkets that will count your coins and turn them into cash. For a cut of the take, of course.

The company cashed in $1.2 billion in loose change for Americans last year.

People seem to have their own systems for handling change.

Madeleine Albright, when she was secretary of state, was seen hauling a wicker basket into a Georgetown bank to redeem $38 in rolled coins.

Kathryn Kailian and her husband, Aram, of Washington, invited friends to bring their loose change to a post-Sept. 11 party to benefit a rescue fund. They wound up with a haul of more than $1,500 from boxes, cookie jars, Ziploc bags, an old sock and even a hollowed-out coconut head.

In building up their coins, Americans are fairly typical of people around the world who can afford to leave loose change lying around, says Steve Bobbitt, a spokesman for the American Numismatic Assn., the largest association of coin collectors.

“Change becomes something that they like to have, but it also becomes a nuisance because of its weight,” he said.

So much so that a fair amount of it actually winds up in the trash, says William Rathje, an archaeology professor at Stanford and author of the book, “Rubbish, The Archaeology of Garbage.” His study of a Massachusetts incinerator found that the million people it served were leaving about $8,000 worth of coins in their garbage every day.

And so, the U.S. Mint keeps making more.

The Mint expects to produce about 15 billion pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. That is down from 24 billion in the previous 12 months.