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Cranbury Township
| VOLUME 19 |
SUMMER, 2005
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ISSUE 2
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Before you turn on that hose
to wash your car
in the driveway
STOP AND THINK!
So maybe you don’t think that washing your car in your driveway is that bad for the environment? Or maybe you just don’t know that much about it and want to help keep Cranbury as clean as possible. Whatever the case, it turns out that car-washing at home, while it may be fun for humans, isn’t so much fun for the fish in the nearest body of water!
| What’s the big deal about washing your car at home? Not only does washing your car use an enormous amount of water (116 gallons on average), but where do you think everything you wash off of your car goes? Into the storm drains of course! And from the storm drains, it goes straight into lakes and streams, causing some serious environmental damage! |
| And how do these pollutants get from my driveway to the water? Well, water that flows down your driveway into the nearest storm drains flows into the nearest body of water untreated (unlike water that goes down your drain) and unfiltered for suspended solids and other pollutants. So whatever comes off of your car goes directly into the nearest body of water! |
| Isn’t the soap bad for the environment? Very bad. The main reason is the power of the surfactants (surface-active substances) to destroy the external mucus layers protecting fish from bacteria and other parasites as well as to severely damage gills. Surfactants also lower the surface tension of the water so that pesticides and phenols are more easily absorbed by the fish. |
| What causes this environmental damage? Oils, grease, elements from brake linings, rust, and trace amounts of benzene and chromium are just a few of the things that flow down your driveway when you wash your car. Add to that the soap and spray-on tire cleaners and you can see what a bad hit the environment takes every time someone washes their car! |
What can I do to help? Be sure to wash your car over pervious surfaces such as lawns and gravel areas so that the wash water can infiltrate into the ground instead of going straight into the storm drains. Be sure not to dispose of any remaining detergent solutions into storm-water conveyance systems, receiving waters, or storm drains. Dispose of them into a sanitary sewer (through sinks, toilets, or floor drains) or into a pervious surface. And try to clean what you can without the water, so as to minimize waste water. Lastly, use environmentally friendly soap, and maybe try washing your car without any soap at all! |
Copyright 2005 Jill Westerberg
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