Every person needs a certain amount of oxygen to breathe. On average, a human breathes in about 550 liters of pure oxygen per day. Trees produce oxygen as a by-product when they make their food through a process called photosynthesis. Now, how much oxygen a tree produces depends on its type, size, and age, but let’s use a common tree for our example, the oak tree.
A mature oak can produce around 100,000 liters of oxygen in a year. If you divide that by 365 days, it’s about 274 liters per day. Remember, we said a person needs 550 liters of oxygen daily. So, if we rely solely on oak trees, each person would need the oxygen from about 2 mature oaks for their yearly oxygen needs.
It might appear that having lesser trees won’t put our oxygen supply at risk. However, keep in mind that trees absorb carbon dioxide and provide other environmental benefits so it’s always good to have more trees than fewer!
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