drivemecrazy

Nowadays, people are taking seriously the effect of vehicles to environment’s condition. With this, they tend to concentrate purely on minimizing the emissions of harmful exhaust gases. Among their efforts are converting their vehicles into hybrid ones and producing alternative fuels that will give off safer emissions. However, what is commonly unknown to us is there are simple things that we usually do in our car that contributes, in a way, to the deterioration of our environment. An example of this is the do-it-yourself (DIY) car washing. So no matter what effort you do in using alternative fuels or hybrid vehicles, if you do you wash your car at your own garage, you will continuously be blamed for the worsening condition of the environment.

In a test conducted two years ago by the Environmental Partners, Inc. in Issaquah, Seattle, the possible impact of untreated car wash wastes was measured using the fish mortality as a measure.

Fish toxicity tests were done using water samples from a car wash event. This gave way to a result of a hundred percent mortality of fish. They found out that detergents, even the biodegradable ones, could be harmful to the fishes’ gills and could wash away the natural oil that helps them absorb oxygen.

You might wonder how this test could be related to your simple act washing your own car. Well, listen. When you wash your car, the detergents and surface residue directly run to the nearest storm drains. When these reach the streams, rivers, oceans, and any other body of water, the effects will surely be felt by aquatic life.

On the other hand, in commercial car wash centers, the dirty waters are not sent to storm drains. It is a must for them that their water be discharged into a separate sanitary sewer that would be even treated and recycled. With that, they do no harm to aquatic life.

May this be a message to people to be more responsible in everything they are doing, even the smallest things. So, let’s continue our fight for a healthier environment.