With people becoming more conscious about saving water it is good to know that there are several ways of saving water when washing your car whether it is at home on your lawn or at a commercial car wash. Using improper and insufficient ways of cleaning your car at home may not just waste large amounts of water on an annual basis, but also result in heavily polluted water flowing into stormwater systems and contaminating waterbodies like the beautiful lakes and wetlands around us.

Below we list the ways you can save water when washing your car at home and at a commercial car wash:

At Home
  1. Use a low flow/high pressure wash.
  2. Wash your car in the rain when possible.
  3. Wash your car on the lawn with the use of biodegradable cleaning chemicals, which provides water to your lawn and prevents any harsh chemicals from entering the stormwater system.
  4. Use a bucket or hose fitted with a trigger nozzle.
Commercial
  1. Only use Water Saver Rating Five Star approved car wash – keep an eye out for the Australian Car Wash Association sign and Smart WaterMark logo.
  2. On average washing your car at home may result in the use of over 100 litres of water and potentially having harsh chemicals entering the stormwater systems, however a commercial car wash ensures the polluted water goes through special settlement pits to the sewer.
  3. Depending on the commercial car wash, they use water efficient high pressure pumps and small nozzles on the trigger guns and are able to recycle on average 70-80 % of the used water which is cleaned and reused.

Weighing up the two options, each has their pros on cons, however when in doubt or you simply don’t have an option to prevent contaminated water running into stormwater systems, look out for sustainable and 5-star water saver rating commercial car washes.

References:
Smart Approved Water Mark 2021, ‘Car washing at home or at a car wash’: https://www.smartwatermark.org/smartwateradvice/saving-water-garden/car-washing/ Water