Many carwashes recycle and reuse their water, yet after a while it gets too murky to use. Well then it is sent down the drain on its way to the city sewer system, only now it is more concentrated with chemicals, soaps, hot wax and heavy metals. So what is happening now?

Well, Car Washes all over the country are having problems with POTWs not allowing their discharges to a sanitary sewer, this is due to the types of chemicals being used and the extremely concentrated reclaim tanks because of using the water multiple times before discharge. To heavily concentrated with oil, grease, petroleum distillates and salt and solvents. POTWs are restricting their maximum daily load; I figured this would happen.

Even though the car washes are doing the right thing in treating and filtering their water and reusing it, when they do discharge to the sanitary sewer system many sewer treatment plants cannot take their discharges, either because they are not set up for it or because the concentration levels are too high. This is a real problem for equipment makers who need to find new ways to pre-treat discharges to an acceptable limit and that may mean higher water usage as well. Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?