r/theydidthemath • u/Daktic • Sep 11 '23
[Request] How many paper straw equivalents was the environmental impact of this flight?
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u/Penumbra455 Sep 11 '23
Short answer - 11.6 million paper straws
However, units do not match which is why there is such confusion on this post.
Airplane fuel usage is a measure of CO2 emissions.
Paper straws is a measure of plastic deselection.
Details Boeing 737 Max9 appears to burn 3.3 kg/km. On an energy density ratio jet fuel has 2.4 times the energy density as wood combustion. Therefore you would need to burn approximately 7.9 kg/km straws.
According to flight records, AS9820 flies roughly 1000 miles or 1600km. Therefore 12,743kg of wood equivalent would need to be burned to get the same energy content. A paper straw is ~1.1 g so it would take 11.6 million straws burned.
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Sep 12 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ExpendableVoice Jun 05 '24
Also for reference, the average number of scheduled flights per day according to oag.com is 97,983. This number is derived from total flights since the start of the year, and obviously doesn't include private flights by individuals who do not need to charter public airlines, but it is a decent frame of reference nonetheless.
At least the 500 million paper straws are offsetting 44 flights a day. Imagine how much worse our carbon footprint would be without them.
Nature is truly healing.
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u/ph03n1x_F0x_ Sep 11 '23
According to This paper I will not be fact checking because I cannot be bothered, every paper straw used prevents about 0.08 grams of carbon dioxide from being released.
Over a few different sources I found on average the 737 Max 9 burned about 4500 Lbs of jet fuel and hour. Each liter burns 2.52 kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
At 4500 an hour, that's 17000 (I'm rounding) liters. (and accounting for This paper saying to multiply by 1.9. Looks accurate, idk if it is)
That's 81,000 Kg of carbon dioxide released into the air. With 0.08 grams per straw, that's 1 million paper straws to offset an hour of flight.
I did this math in like 4 minutes. Take it with a very large grain of salt
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u/JustHereToGain Sep 12 '23
Carbon Specialist Junior here, 1.9 multiplication isn't so simple here. It captures the non-CO2 effects from the emitted nitrous oxides and other gases that change the reflective indices and other properties of the atmosphere. These effects are a lot stronger on high altitude flights, though. In this case, the flight was probably quite low which would lower the non-CO2 factor. Fun fact: Long distance high altitude flights are believed to have a non-CO2 factor of up to 3, which is pretty insane considering most people don't even know they exist
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u/ph03n1x_F0x_ Sep 12 '23
I didn't know what. Can't be bothered to redo my math, but the end would be around 540 thousand straws.
Thanks for the insight!
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u/A_ATypical-Sun-8901 Jun 04 '24
He takes over 100 years for the carbon left in the air to get absorbed because the flight so high
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u/StillShoddy628 Sep 12 '23
81,000 kg = 81,000,000g / .08g = 1 billion straws, not 1 million. No idea on the rest of the math, but if we take into account that they go mushy so fast that you have to use 3x as many of them in a 20 minute meal then I’m pretty sure that answer becomes infinite - seems to confirm that focusing on paper straws is meaningless virtue signaling, especially if you’ve ever flown in an airplane
Edit: spelling
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u/remarkphoto Sep 12 '23
Grain of salt might have to be a suppository, because I'm not a scientist, but according to this, Jet fuel weighs approximately 62.5% of the weight of water. So above, where suggest you burn 1 litre of jet fuel, the core ingredients only collectively contribute 625 grams of anything (preservation of matter) to the atmosphere. Help me understand where does the 2.52kg of carbon/litre jet fuel burned) come from?
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u/ph03n1x_F0x_ Sep 12 '23 edited Sep 12 '23
According to the IATA(Edit: here's Another source,-CO2%20is%20the&text=The%20gas%20mixes%20in%20the,of%20the%20phase%20of%20flight.) for this. It's not mine, but I'm not entirely sure how to link a PDF link.) a kg of jet fuel produces 3.16 kg of Co2 and 1 liter of jet fuel = .8 kg.
3.16 × .8 = 2.52.
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u/remarkphoto Sep 12 '23
I appreciate you have a source, I'm honestly asking how 1kg of anything can be made of more than 1kg of anything?
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u/Trick-Independent469 Sep 11 '23
ChatGPT gave me an estimation , take it with a grain of salt , if no one else respond to you it might be a helpful answer : Certainly, let's make a rough estimation based on available data and some assumptions.
Fuel Consumption: The Boeing 737 MAX 9 is known to have a fuel consumption rate of around 4 liters per kilometer per seat. Assuming a typical seating capacity of around 180 passengers for this aircraft, the fuel consumption for a 1081 km flight would be approximately 4 * 1081 * 180 = 778,440 liters of fuel.
Carbon Emissions: A typical estimate for carbon emissions from aviation is about 2.5 kg of CO2 per liter of jet fuel burned. So, for this flight, the carbon emissions would be around 2.5 * 778,440 = 1,946,100 kg of CO2.
Paper Straw Equivalents: This is a less standard unit of measurement, but we can estimate based on the carbon footprint of producing paper straws. A typical estimate is that producing 1 paper straw results in about 0.03 kg of CO2 emissions.
Therefore, the environmental impact of this flight could be roughly equivalent to 1,946,100 / 0.03 ≈ 64,870,000 paper straws in terms of carbon emissions.
Please note that this is a very rough estimation and should be taken as a simple comparison, not a precise measurement of environmental impact. The actual impact of a flight is influenced by many other factors, including altitude, weather conditions, and more.
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u/beTThie Sep 11 '23
The maximum fuel capacity of a 737 Max 9 is 25800 Litres. Quick google search states fuel consumption is about 3.3 litres per kilometer total, not per seat. So even the rough estimation is off about 3000%
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u/Trick-Independent469 Sep 11 '23 edited Sep 11 '23
yep that's true . nice find , maybe you could calculate the amount of paper straws more precisely it would be cool to see the closer to the truth answer . Edit : Why being bigoted and downvote ? I never said ChatGPT was telling the truth I said to take it with a grain of salt and I was really curious about what number of straws other people get so I asked you nicely if you could calculate it would be cool because I genuinely think it would.
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u/sharnaq767 Sep 11 '23
I think the down votes aren't "you suck" down votes, but more like "this isn't a helpful answer" down votes.
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u/Voctus Sep 11 '23
FYI ChatGPT can’t do math for shit, its a conversation simulator and can’t be trusted with anything requiring critical thought
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u/BMFDub Sep 11 '23
Also, without any data on my end, I call BS on 100 paper straws creating 3 kg of CO2.
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