Three Tons or 6000 Pounds?

What sounds like a bigger number to you? Three tons, or 6000 pounds?

This question arises from a story in this morning’s AJC about a man convicted of abandoning medical waste that was supposed to be disposed of properly.

An Atlanta businessman was sentenced Wednesday for abandoning more than three tons of human and medical waste at a site in DeKalb County.

Lee had collected the 6,943 pounds of medical waste at various locations but failed to deliver it to an appropriate disposal facility.

When I got to that part of the story my brain went, “Oh, that’s not so bad as three tons. Wait…”

Apparently I’ve been trained to think of tons as REALLY BIG NUMBERS but pounds as just kind of so-so.

Comments

2 responses to “Three Tons or 6000 Pounds?”

  1. Rob Cain Avatar
    Rob Cain

    You went to an engineering school, right, Bill?

  2. Bill Ruhsam Avatar

    @Rob: I did indeed go to an engineering school.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *