Spring is coming and with it warmer and sunnier days, which for many people means cleaner cars. However, for the environmentally conscious this poses somewhat of a problem.
So what do you do is you want to have a clean car and be eco-friendly? The best and greenest option is a waterless car wash or dry wash, which works best on slightly dirty cars (not so good for cars that are sloshed with mud from the melting snow, dirty rain and such). So if you’re considering either washing your car at home or using a commercial car wash, there are some facts you should consider that may be quite surprising.
First of all, washing cars at home uses on average about 80-140 gallons of water while commercial washes use only about 45 gallons per car. Moreover, most states are required by law to put the waste water used in the commercial car washes in the sewer systems where it is treated and then released as clean water back into the environment. This cannot be said for washing your cars at home since both the waste water and soap wind up in the storm sewage, where the untreated and contaminated waste is released into the environment, more often than not ending up in waterways adding to their pollution.
Additionally, most commercial car washes will take precautions to save money thus many have systems installed that allow to save water by minimizing the water usage, recycling and reusing the rinse water etc.
So if you’re considering washing your car at home, go to a commercial car wash instead. And if this will become slightly too much of an expense, think about where you drive mostly and perhaps devise a way to avoid certain routes to keep your car cleaner longer. And maintaining your car clean instead of letting it accumulate dirt is probably the best solution since it will allow you to combine the waterless or dry wash to remove slight dirt and commercial wash once in while when the car simply gets too dirty for comfort.
