Cape Town residents running informal car washes are being contacted by the City’s Water and Sanitation Department to ensure that water is used efficiently and discharged within the city’s by-laws.
This forms part of its Keep Saving Water campaign. During the first week of March, the Department’s Water Conservation Section will embark on an awareness and education campaign as part of the National Water Week and Water Month celebrations in Cape Town. This will include visits to car washes that were identified during a survey initiated in October 2012 where informal car washes were identified and recorded. The purpose of the survey is twofold. The first step is to establish the source of the water supplied to the car washes and the second is to educate the users in complying with good water conservation practices and the city’s water by-laws.“As part of our commitment to building an Opportunity City that supports small business, the city is doing all that it can to assist those who run car washes to operate legally and make optimal use of water. For an informal car wash to operate within the requirements of the city’s by-laws, it must be metered (separately) and the water must be discharged to the sewer and not the stormwater system. This is because car washes generate greywater, which must be handled carefully and can be dangerous if not disposed of correctly,” said the city’s mayoral committee member for utility services, Councillor Ernest Sonnenberg.
“If car washes discharge the soap and chemicals used for washing vehicles into the stormwater system, this run-off ends up in rivers and vleis, and causes major ecological damage as well as an unhealthy environment, which is why the by-laws prohibit this practice. Ensuring residents discharge water via the correct networks and systems remains a major challenge. The city’s water and wastewater by-laws are very clear: the only run-off permitted to the stormwater system is rain water and water collected from roofs via the gutters and down pipes. All other wastewater and backwash from any pool must be diverted to the sewer system.
