Trivia Question: What holiday celebrates little-known factoids?

Answer: National Trivia Day, January 4!

One of the first evolutions of the game that is now popularly known as Trivia debuted on the 1940s radio program “Take It or Leave It,” a British game show on which contestants were asked increasingly difficult questions about random factoids. After answering a question correctly, contestants had the choice to “take” the prize for that question or “leave it” in favor of a chance at the next question. The first question was worth one dollar, and the value doubled for each successive question, up to the seventh and final question worth $64. Take It or Leave It paved the way for Jeopardy! in the 60s, and now, more than 80 years since the debut of Take It or Leave It, trivia internationally played through board games, apps, tv shows and more. Like anyone else, we enjoy a good trivia question so we’ve put several together for your enjoyment. Happy Trivia!

Trivia Question: Can writing on paper improve brain function?

Answer: Yes, it can!

Studies have shown that taking notes on paper forces you to slow down and helps sharpen areas in your brain that are responsible for thinking, language and memory. Ultimately, increased paper usage can have a positive effect on your ability to recall information.

Trivia Question: How many sheets of paper can a single tree make?

Answer: 10,000-20,000

One tree can produce thousands of sheets of paper! Since height and weight vary from tree to tree, it takes some “mathing” to get to that number. A cord of hardwood (128 cubic feet) weighing two tons will produce 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of paper. Using a tree with an average 8-inch diameter trunk and a usable height of about 45 feet would get us to roughly 10 cubic feet of wood. So, it would take about 8 of these trees to produce between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds of paper and since a typical 500-sheet packet of the paper weighs 5 pounds, that’s 10,000 to 20,000 sheets per tree.

Trivia Question: How many sheets of paper get used or ordered in a year?

Answer: 84,176,000,000,000

More math, hooray? The estimated global consumption of paper is 421.88 million metric tons of paper, so let’s do some math! One ton of paper contains about 200,000 sheets, so 420,880,000 x 200,000 = 84,176,000,000,000 sheets of paper! (Or a near approximation.)

Trivia Question: How many times can paper be recycled?

Answer: Five to seven

Paper fiber can only be recycled paper five to seven times before it breaks down, becomes too weak and is no longer be recyclable.

We hope this blog answers a few of your burning paper questions. If you have more, feel free to ask us on social media or scroll through our blog.