The bag-to-yard conversion
One cubic yard contains exactly 27 cubic feet. Multiply the number of bags by the volume printed on one bag, then divide by 27. That means 13.5 bags of 2 cu ft material have the same volume as 1 cubic yard, while 9 bags of 3 cu ft material equal 1 cubic yard exactly.
Volume equivalence and a shopping quantity are not always the same number. Because a store sells whole bags, a 1-cubic-yard order requires 14 two-cubic-foot bags, not 13.5. The reverse converter therefore rounds bag counts up; the forward converter leaves the calculated volume unrounded apart from display formatting.
How 50-liter bags are handled
The metric option uses 1 cubic foot = 28.3168 liters, so a 50 L bag equals about 1.7657 cubic feet. One cubic yard is 764.5536 liters, equivalent to about 15.291 50 L bags by volume; buying a full cubic yard in 50 L bags therefore means rounding up to 16 bags.
The other metric result uses 1 cubic foot = 0.0283168 cubic meters. These conversions describe volume only. Mulch weight varies with material and moisture, so bag weight is not used in the calculation.
Worked examples
- 20 bags at 2 cu ft: 20 × 2 = 40 cu ft; 40 ÷ 27 = 1.4815 cubic yards.
- 20 bags at 3 cu ft: 20 × 3 = 60 cu ft; 60 ÷ 27 = 2.2222 cubic yards.
- 2.5 cubic yards in 2 cu ft bags: 2.5 × 27 ÷ 2 = 33.75, so buy 34 whole bags.
- 1 cubic yard in 50 L bags: 764.5536 ÷ 50 = 15.2911, so buy 16 whole bags.