Released July 3, 2008

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The typical five-minute shower can take 25 gallons of water. By comparison, the average person washing a car at home can use more than 500 gallons of water, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That's a lot of increasingly expensive water and soap suds washing down the street's storm drain and going into the waterways.

"If our cars desperately need washing, we should take them to a car wash that recycles water or sends it to a wastewater treatment plant," recommends Suzanne Hirrel, extension specialist-environmental management with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

Or, she suggests, use some old rags and a bucket of water to do the job with much less water waste.

"A standard garden hose can use 10 gallons per minute or more," says Hirrel. "This means we can easily use 100 gallons of water with only a quick, 10-minute car wash."

There's another problem.

"When we wash our cars in our driveways, the runoff water carries detergents, oils, rust and engine grime directly into storm drains and eventually into streams, rivers and ecosystems," she says.

Hirrel says you can reduce the amount of water used by attaching a shutoff hose nozzle on the garden hose and checking for leaks at the hose bib connection.

In contrast, household wastewater and commercial carwash facilities' wastewater enter sewers or septic tanks and are treated before being discharged into the environment.

One solution for the home washer may be to park the car on the lawn so that the toxic wastewater can be absorbed and neutralized in soil instead of flowing directly into storm drains or open bodies of water.

To learn more about conserving water and protecting our waterways, contact your local extension agent. The Cooperative Extension Service is a part of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

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http://www.uaex.edu/news/july2008/0703washcar.htm

Contact: Lamar James, (501) 671-2187,ljames@uaex.edu