HawthorneVillager.com

RCK... this is a factual issue that can easily be researched... it's worth spending a little time on it, so that instead of just having an opinion, you'll have an informed opinion. I worked at a gas station 20 years ago that added a car wash and was in the loop on how the technologies were working, and even back then the minimum requirements were basically 100% water capture and cleaning before returning it to the waterbed and the use of non-polluting cleaners and waxes... environmental technology has improved drastically since then and presumably legislation has gotten tighter as well, so I assume things are even better, although I definately haven't kept up with it so that is definately an assumption.

On top of that, road salt is extremely corrosive to cars and it's effects are worse above the freezing mark, so mild winters with oscillating temperatures like we have had are about the worst you can have... the only saving grace is with so little snow there was less salt. That said, cleaning the salt off your car will extend it's life, which in general is better for the environment, unless you'd replace it with something better. Again, lots of information of the effect of road salt both on cars and the local water table are available... I bet after reading it you'll join me in wishing the town used sand instead of salt on the roads!

As for washing on your grass, in times of low water that's a great way to kill two birds with one stone, assuming you're using a safe biodegradable soap (which you should be no matter where you wash), but if not, the water just goes into the storm drain and quickly returns into circulation via the local storm pond system, evaporation/rain/etc. As it's not gone, it's probably not a huge environmental savings. If you were concerned about not wasting water for your lawn, you'd be farther ahead to use rain barrels and water the lawn from those instead of driving on to your lawn. And of course, some of us have front lawns smaller than our cars due to Mattamy maximizing backyard space.

Personally, I've washed my car a couple times this past winter because of salt issues and took advantage of a very rainy day to drive through some big puddles and wash off the salt that way once. In the spring/summer/fall, I don't usually wash the car at all, I just make a point to have it out on the driveway instead of in the garage whenever a big rainstorm is due Not because I'm environmentally great, but because I have the one-two combo of cheapness and laziness

edit... wrong esso location.. disregard

Very well said.

I'm REALLY oversimplifying this because I'm not a chemistry major, and there are multiple steps... but basically think of it this way... take a jug of water and add some motor oil some sugar, and some rocks. Pretty sludgy mess, right? Well, first pour that through a seive and boom, rocks are gone. Then use a centrifuge and you can seperate the water and oil (or many other methods since oil and water don't mix). That leaves you a sugar water solution which you can heat up so the water evaporates and leaves behind the sugar, then the water cools down/condenses in another location. Basically you're left with very pure H2O at the end. I've used pretty innocuous elements but basically you have to do those steps in order because if you heated it with the oil you'd have a fire and noxious fumes, and if you heated it with the rocks they'd absorb a lot of heat so it would waste a lot of electricity.

It's basically like they do with sewage in a lot of places now... you strain out the poop and sell it to a farmer... the sludgy water you pour into a series of tanks with different water plants... the first tank will take some of the water and grow off the acidic content... the next tank might be algae and it feeds off any bacteria... and then at the end what is left over is poured into long thin tanks to allow for evaporation. Saw an excellent documentary on it, but I'll be darned if I could remember where to point it at you.



Same here... does the same job but doesn't hurt the water supply the way salt does. Not messing up cars so bad is good but it's a tradeoff cause come spring you have very muddy roads also making a mess of your car.



Again, I'm not a chemistry expert, but my understanding is that most car bodies and parts are either plastic polymers or where metal, are sealed with the same to prevent the oxidization... the salt actually eats away at the protections on your car, which can cause a disintegration similar to rust in the plastic parts, or allow actual rusting in the metal parts by letting the water through. In addition, when the protection is gone, if the salt is "stuck" to the metal part, then it could have the effect of pulling water from the atmosphere to the metal, and then the water de-bonds with the salt and oxidizes the metal, leaving an opening for the salt to grab more water from the atmosphere, and so on. Please take these explanations with a big grain of salt (no pun intended) because my understanding of this is based upon people giving me the layman's version and I am assuming I understood it correctly... a chemist could probably straighten this out even more.



Interesting... what sort of things could be harmful in the drain but not harmful in your lawn? I suppose things that encouraged vegation growth, as that would cause excessive algae blooms in the sewers, but anything else would probably be harmful no matter where it went. Of course, I think that's the whole point of modern environmentally friendly soaps and the like. I have to admit, I haven't looked into this since I don't wash the car at home (if it gets super muddy, all it gets is a rinse, salt gets taken care of at the car wash) but I thought they had banned all the harmful stuff years ago?