by Zachary Cook
I had this weird thought (as I often do): On average, out of all the sheets of paper used in the US every day, how many of those are made into paper airplanes? Welp, here’s what I came up with.
1 paper airplane per 114,000 pieces of paper used a day in the US.
Let’s look at how I got there.
65.4 billion pieces of paper are used every day in the US. (Contributing Writer, 2016)
137,432 schools, colleges, and universities in the US as of 2020 (Bouchrika, 2020)
Let’s say on average, there are 2 paper airplanes made in every school, college, university every day. Why 2? What about the schools that don’t make any? What about those that make more? Here are my reasons why I chose 2 airplanes.
Now, there is no concrete study done on paper airplanes in schools/workplaces. So this is my best, educated guess and synthesis.
I could have gone with an even “1 plane per school per day”, but have you ever been around a student that made a paper airplane? Chances are, their friend that is sitting beside them is going to make one as well. That brings the average up! And what about those physics teachers who are doing experiments and illustrations with paper airplanes? Then every student in that class makes a plane, and often multiple (probably an average of 3 per physics class per student. This would give the opportunity to test, fix, test, adjust, test). This significantly would raise the average! But not every physics class is doing this every day (if there is one, I want to be the one to teach it). So that will lower the average just a bit.
And what about the schools that no students make any planes during the day? I have worked in the public school systems full time for a few years now, and I can attest that some days, all the students come in with a funk. And no, I’m not talking about the stench coming off of middle-schoolers that haven’t discovered deodorant yet, I’m talking about the attitude of the overall school over the course of a day. Sometimes, students come in, do the bare minimum, and get out. So there is bound to be a significant number of schools around the US that nobody makes any planes throughout the day. So their average would be 0 planes a day.
So, taking in the estimates from above, I come to the rough guess of about 2 paper airplanes per school per day. So that puts us at about 275,000 paper airplanes for all of the schools in the US per day. That puts us at about 1 paper airplane per 235,000 sheets of paper used per day in the US.
But wait, schools aren’t the only places to use paper. What about places of work? Don’t worry, I gotchu.
According to recordnations.com, the average office worker uses 10,000 pieces of copy paper a year (O'Mara, 2021). Well, 10,000/365 is 27.4. But we will round it to 27 pieces of paper per office worker per day. Later on, in that same article, it says that about 45% of the paper that is used a day in the office ends up in the trash. So that puts us at about 12 pieces of paper being thrown out per office worker per day.
Stick with me.
There were roughly 123.2 million full-time workers and 3.8 million part-time workers in the US in 2020 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). If we say that each full-time worker threw out 12 pieces of paper per day, and each part-time worker threw out 6 pieces of paper, that puts us at 1.47 billion pieces being thrown out for full-time workers and 22.8 million pieces being thrown out for part-time workers. That puts us at a staggering 1.5 billion pieces of paper being thrown out per day for those employed in the US.
So how many of those are made into airplanes? Let’s say for every 5,000 pieces of paper being thrown out in the office space, one of those is made into a paper airplane. That puts us at 300,000 paper airplanes for all the workforce in the US per day. That number may look funny to you because that is more airplanes than what the students in schools make per day! Surely students are more apt to make paper airplanes than those in a professional setting! Well, you would be correct in that statement! But there are far more businesses and employees in the US than there are current students. So, on average, a student makes more paper airplanes, but because of the sheer number of employees, more paper airplanes are made in a professional setting than in the schools.
So where does that leave us?
275,000 + 300,00 = 575,000 air planes a day ≈ 1 paper airplane per 114,000 pieces of paper used per day in the US
But what other places use paper? What is their average for airplanes per paper? Again, there is no in-depth research on this, so all of this is educated guessing.
Red-Bull Paper Wings Competition: 5 US Finalists in 2019 - allowed one airplane per person
Everyone throwing Paper airplanes off the Grand Canyon: Probably about 20 a day
Me as I’m writing this article: One a day
Hobbyists: Probably around 100 a day
People at sporting events: 5 a day (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV6EP9bBbac)
Is there more? Maybe! Is there less? Who knows! This isn’t an exact science. But let's look at our final numbers:
275,000 + 300,000 + 126 = 575,126 airplanes a day ≈ 1 paper airplane per...well the same as above... 114,000 pieces of paper used in the US every day. Let’s put that in other terms:
1,150 reams of paper airplanes per day
6,900 pounds of paper airplanes a day
$8,050 worth of paper airplanes a day
Roughly two trees a day is used to make paper airplanes
Around 17 days worth of airtime if every plane is thrown (average of 2.5 seconds per plane (average based on personal tests))
So what does this mean? Absolutely nothing. I just did hours of research for internet points. But when I get a thought, I try to answer it!
Sources:
Bouchrika, I. (2020, June 25). 101 American School Statistics: 2020 Data, Trends & Predictions. Guide2Research. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.guide2research.com/research/american-school-statistics#:~:text=with%20academic%20learning.-,FAQs,schools%2C%20colleges%2C%20and%20universities.
Contributing Writer. (2016, July 2). How Much Paper is Used in the US in One Day? isustainableearth.com. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from http://www.isustainableearth.com/sustainable-living/how-much-paper-is-used
O'Mara, M. (2021, March 26). How Much Paper is Used in One Day. Record Nations. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.recordnations.com/2016/02/how-much-paper-is-used-in-one-day/
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021, January 22). Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. BLS. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat08.htm
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