Originally Posted by
toomanybooks
It has always amused me the concern people have with the waste of some bits of plastic and cardboard, while minimizing the resources expended to run the ordering systems, the gasoline and the vehicle depreciation and the human labor to transport the coins to the buyer, the same for the trip to the bank, and the same for the armored truck to take the coins back from the bank to wherever they go.
It's got to be 1000 to 1.
I've seen presentation on how much carbon emissions was saved when Apple reduced packaging, which include gasoline for transportation. I don't know why they come in the tiny boxes and not in the $1k boxes I've seen on ebay; but you are totally correct in the overall picture the carbon footprint or what not is probably large... Though if the coins make it into circulation it would cut down on the paper dollar bills used ^