## Sep 25, 2008

### Crystal Got Trashed

Recently Crystal had a little accident in our garden behind our house.  She filled the trash up with dirt and asphalt and tried to tip the trash up on it's wheels to move it.

Well, she pulled too hard and it tipped over, pinning her to the ground.  Luckily she had her phone to call for help.  When the paramedics came it took four big guys to lift the trash off of her leg.

Here is the picture the trash as the paramedics left it.  I tried to lift this myself and there was NO WAY I could lift it.  I had to empty half of the dirt and asphalt out to get it upright again.

Now here comes the geeky part.  Crystal and I were talking about how heavy it must have been ... so I decided to figure out how much it weighed.

$96&space;\frac{gallons}{trashcan}&space;\times&space;\left(&space;.05&space;\times&space;9.4&space;\frac{lbs}{gal}&space;+.45&space;\times&space;14&space;\frac{lbs}{gal}&space;\right)&space;=&space;650&space;lbs$

It surprised me how heavy the trash was, especially only being half-full of dirt and asphalt.  If the entire trash had been completely full of dirt it would have been over 1300 lbs!

I included the numbers and estimates below for my fellow geeks.

Asphalt Info
-Density = 9.4 lbs/gal
-Content = 5% by volume

Dirt Info
-Density = 14 lbs/gal
-Content = 45% by volume

Crystal told me she had the garbage can about half full of packed weeds, so I just assumed that to have no contributing weight.  The dirt/asphalt mixture was mainly dirt, so I assumed a 5%/45% split between the asphalt and dirt respectively (as indicated above).

Here are the websites I pulled my data from:
Trash bin info 1, 2
Dirt Density 1, 2
Asphalt Density 1

(these numbers seem a bit high, but I couldn't find a mistake.  if anyone else has a correction please let me know. thanks.)

wwhatcott said...

I can only hope Crystal can give up getting trashed! Love the geekiness part! Too funny!

September 26, 2008
Elisa said...

You really are a geek...but good work

September 28, 2008