I threw out litterally hundreds of pounds of jewel cases about 8 years ago. I saved the art and was breaking out the cases for the back art as well, but I gave up on that about half way through.
I have kids that screw with things so I store them in DJ cases. I have this one that holds 1000 CDS, though probably more like 800-900 if single stuffed in sleeves.
Robot Check
Now I have started to rip all my CDs 10 different times in the last couple decades, but it is a crap ton of work. I am actually glad I never got far earlier because I believe now is about the right time to do it. Mass storage is cheap so lossless is the way to go. Id be pretty bummed if I spent alot of time ripping 128k mp3s in tha 90s for example. I have a huge collection of low bit rate mp3 and it makes me sad to listen to them on my home stereo.