Plastics, Or 13 Is Greater Than 2

According to a 2008 report issued by the American Chemistry Council's Plastics Industry Producers' Statistics Group, The Grand Total amount of Thermoplastic Resins produced in North America for the year-to-date period ending in March 2008 (January – March 2008) was 19,820,361 thousands of pounds, or 19,820,361,000 pounds, or 9,910,180.5 Standard tons.

This is the amount of plastic resin made from petroleum-based sources for the first quarter of 2008. Multiply by 4 and we have 39,640,722 for one year of production. Lets be generous and round that down to 30,000,000 tons.

Now lets try to replace Thermoplastic Resin with Polylactic Acid, or PLA, a plant-based resin that is said to be greener, compostable, and made from plant sources, most commonly corn.

Polylactic Acid (PLA)

2.5 kg of corn needed to produce 1 kg of (PLA)

1 standard ton = approx 907 kg, so 1 ton of PLA requires 2,267.5 tons of corn

A dry bushel of corn weighs 56 pounds. 1 standard ton of corn is equal to 35.7 bushels of dry corn. Thus 1 standard ton of PLA needs approx 80,950 dry bushels of corn.

According to the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the average yield of corn per acre is 183 dry bushels. Thus 1 standard ton of PLA needs approx 442 acres of cornfield.

30,000,000 standard tons of plastic resin made with corn-based PLA would require...

13,260,000,000 acres of cornfield

In 2007 the total acreage of farmland in the US was 2,262,000,000. That number is smaller now.

13 > 2.