Eco Car Washes?
Seems the new big craze in getting consumers to use your product is to claim you are Green or you are Eco-Friendly.
Two days ago I splurged and got a car wash for one of my cars (since I usually don’t do it and hadn’t done it since last fall). The Sunoco I went to boasted that this car wash was Eco-Friendly, although I didn’t see the exact claims about how it could make that claim (my assumption is that they reuse the water and filter it in some fashion or another). The actual car wash was quite good and my car does not look grungy any more, however, something else tweaked my interest.
Near the entrance of the car wash there were boasts about if you wash your car in your driveway you are NOT being ecologically friendly (I am assuming the eco in eco-friendly is Ecology and not Economy) because you are washing tar, road salt, oil, grease and other yucky things into the sewers which is then flushed into nature (in Ottawa we have filtration plants (which sometimes flush raw sewage into the river, but not always, but that is another story)). The implication was that by using this eco-friendly car wash, you were saving the environment.
That was an interesting argument, that I had to think about a little, before I went, “What a load of horse defecation!“. With that same argument I should take all my clothes to the dry cleaners since I am flushing all the crap on my clothes into the sewers as well, and I shouldn’t wash my dishes, since that does the same, or take showers, or flush my toilet.
So if I didn’t wash anything, would I then be the ultimate Eco-Friendly human? Rhetorical, but an interesting question.
CPI Friday
The Canadian CPI numbers should be out on Friday however our brothers south of the border have an interesting set of numbers already. The states actually saw a CPI drop of 0.1% February to March which is the first time that has happened in 54 years. Gas price drop seems to be the main reason for this drop, but it is very interesting to hear about, we shall see what our numbers have to hold for tomorrow.
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April 16th, 2009 at 6:17 AM
I believe where your water from your driveway goes is the storm drain system, which I thought was separate from the sewer systems and not filtered or processed in any way (since it’s usually just rain water). Plus a lot of people waste a PILE of water when washing their car, which is supplied in a quality for drinking. Using the two/three bucket method is probably the most efficient however.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:44 AM
Not sure how Ottawa does this, my understanding is that all water is being flushed through the water filtration plants, because when we have big rain storms there are automatic overrides that will then dump straight into the river.
I am all for cleaner water, I just think this whole “Aren’t we Green!” statement from Sunoco is amusing.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Since it never rains in Ottawa, the contaminants Sunoco speaks of could never reach the sewers by any other means than car washing at home……
DAvid
April 16th, 2009 at 10:21 AM
This is why I put these rants up, my readers always have better arguments than I do! Good point!