Getting your car washed at Soapy Joe’s uses about 80% less water than you would use at home in your driveway. You might be thinking, “How is that even possible?”
Let us explain.
The Problem with Washing at Home
Studies have shown that hoses use 14 gallons of water per minute. Most people spend, figure, 10-30 minutes hosing down their car. We’ll spare you the math and just say that’s a lot of water, much of it wasted. Just look at the driveway – there’s water everywhere but on your car!
How We’re Fixing It
We use a fraction of the water that home washers use—approximately 30 gallons of city water per car. The average wash at Soapy Joe’s is just 3-5 minutes. And aside from using less water, most of it is recycled water.
What Do You Mean, “Recycled Water?”
Don’t worry, it’s still clean. Recycled, or reclaimed, water is simply excess water (like the water you waste when washing your car at home) being treated to re-use for everyday purposes. It might not sound appealing, but you can even drink most recycled water. We digress. Let’s get back to the car wash.
At Soapy Joe’s, we reclaim and filter all of our fresh water for re-use. This recycling process allows us to save about 20 gallons of fresh water for each wash. Water that is not re-used is processed before being sent to sanitary sewer systems for further refinement and processing.
How it Works
The water reclamation process is just as mesmerizing as the suds and bubbles you see during your wash. Over 90% of the water used in a Soapy Joe’s wash is captured by our reclamation system.
The water starts by going through a process known as reverse osmosis. This system uses membranes to cleanse the water and filter out any contaminants. The water is then transferred into our holding tanks. Bonus: You now know what those big blue cylinders you see at our locations are used for.
From the holding tanks, the water is passed into our wash and comes out of our rain bars to be used again in more washes. Any water we don’t use is released into the drainage system as filtered water that is safe for the community.
The best part? Using less water is only one part of what makes our car washes the better choice for the environment. Learn more about eco-friendly car washes at Soapy Joe’s and roll through a location near you today!
