Things measured in shopping carts
A shopping cart weighs about 12–35 kg, which makes it a usable informal unit — "three elephants" lands where a raw figure in kg does not. Every comparison below is computed from a sourced figure rather than an invented average.
Things measured in shopping carts
| Thing | Mass | In shopping carts |
|---|---|---|
| window | 12–70 kg | 1.12 shopping cart |
| common wombat | 20–40 kg | 1.08 shopping cart |
| jackhammer | 10–42 kg | 1.04 shopping cart |
| pit bull | 14–32 kg | 1.00 shopping cart |
| bag of cement | 20–50 kg | 1.00 shopping cart |
| pressure washer | 8–55 kg | 1.00 shopping cart |
| bale of hay | 18–700 kg | 1.00 shopping cart |
| African wild dog | 18–36 kg | 1.00 shopping cart |
| Siberian husky | 16–27 kg | 1.09 of these per shopping cart |
| sheet of drywall | 14–48 kg | 1.09 of these per shopping cart |
| bag of sand | 11–27 kg | 1.10 of these per shopping cart |
| solar panel | 17–33 kg | 1.14 of these per shopping cart |
| kayak | 9–45 kg | 1.14 of these per shopping cart |
| Eurasian lynx | 13–35 kg | 1.14 of these per shopping cart |
| wheelbarrow | 12–35 kg | 1.14 of these per shopping cart |
| coffee table | 8–60 kg | 1.14 of these per shopping cart |
Why informal units work
Absolute figures fail because most people have no calibrated sense of a kilogram above about the weight of a shopping bag, or of a metre above their own height. A familiar object supplies that calibration by borrowing it from something already known — which is the same reason a scale bar on a map beats a stated ratio, and why "the size of Wales" persists in journalism despite being useless to anyone who has not been there.
The figure for one shopping cart is itself a range rather than a constant — see its own page for the spread. These comparisons are for intuition, not measurement.
Common questions
- How much does a shopping cart weigh?
- 12–35 kg
- Why compare things to shopping carts?
- Because most people have no calibrated sense of large absolute figures. A familiar object borrows intuition from something already known.
Related pages
- How much does a shopping cart weigh? Full figure and range
- Measured in school buses 6,500–12,000 kg
- Measured in city buses 11,000–20,000 kg
- Measured in African elephants 2,200–10,400 kg
- Measured in Asian elephants 2,000–6,000 kg
- Measured in blue whales 50–190 t
- Measured in giraffes 700–1,930 kg
- Measured in cars 1,100–2,100 kg
- Measured in pianos 130–550 kg
- Measured in refrigerators 70–170 kg
- Measured in washing machines 55–115 kg
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place