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A family wears clothes of three colours: red, blue and green, with a separate, identical laundry bin for each colour. At the beginning of the first week, all bins are empty. Each week, the family generates a total of $10 \mathrm{~kg}$ of laundry (the proportion of each colour is subject to variation). The laundry is sorted by colour and placed in the bins. Next, the heaviest bin (only one of them, if there are several that are heaviest) is emptied and its contents washed. What is the minimal possible storing capacity required of the laundry bins in order for them never to overflow?

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Answer: $25 \mathrm{~kg}$.

Each week, the accumulation of laundry increases the total amount by $K=10$, after which the washing decreases it by at least one third, because, by the pigeon-hole principle, the bin with the most laundry must contain at least a third of the total. Hence the amount of laundry post-wash after the $n$th week is bounded above by the sequence $a_{n+1}=\frac{2}{3}\left(a_{n}+K\right)$ with $a_{0}=0$, which is clearly bounded above by $2 K$. The total amount of laundry is less than $2 K$ post-wash and $3 K$ pre-wash.

Now suppose pre-wash state $(a, b, c)$ precedes post-wash state $(a, b, 0)$, which precedes pre-wash state $\left(a^{\prime}, b^{\prime}, c^{\prime}\right)$. The relations $a \leq c$ and $a^{\prime} \leq a+K$ lead to

$$
3 K>a+b+c \geq 2 a \geq 2\left(a^{\prime}-K\right)
$$

and similarly for $b^{\prime}$, whence $a^{\prime}, b^{\prime}<\frac{5}{2} K$. Since also $c^{\prime} \leq K$, a pre-wash bin, and a fortiori a post-wash bin, always contains less than $\frac{5}{2} K$.

Consider now the following scenario. For a start, we keep packing the three bins equally full before washing. Initialising at $(0,0,0)$, the first week will end at $\left(\frac{1}{3} K, \frac{1}{3} K, \frac{1}{3} K\right)$ pre-wash and $\left(\frac{1}{3} K, \frac{1}{3} K, 0\right)$ post-wash, the second week at $\left(\frac{5}{9} K, \frac{5}{9} K, \frac{5}{9} K\right)$ pre-wash and $\left(\frac{5}{9} K, \frac{5}{9} K, 0\right)$ post-wash, \&c. Following this scheme, we can get arbitrarily close to the state $(K, K, 0)$ after washing. Supposing this accomplished, placing $\frac{1}{2} K \mathrm{~kg}$ of laundry in each of the non-empty bins leaves us in a state close to $\left(\frac{3}{2} K, \frac{3}{2} K, 0\right)$ pre-wash and $\left(\frac{3}{2} K, 0,0\right)$ post-wash. Finally, the next week's worth of laundry is directed solely to the single non-empty bin. It may thus contain any amount of laundry below $\frac{5}{2} K \mathrm{~kg}$.

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