Cleaning Up the Car Wash

  • At the London Road Car Wash, the first blast of soapy water is captured in a pit under the floor and used again. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Many business leaders are taking a serious look at their environmental impact. Companies from Ikea to Home Depot are following a science-based approach to sustainability called the Natural Step. Stephanie Hemphill visited one small business that’s rethinking its operations:

Transcript

Many business leaders are taking a serious look at their environmental impact. Companies from Ikea to Home Depot are following a science-based approach to sustainability called the Natural Step. Stephanie Hemphill visited one small business that’s rethinking its operations:

You probably wouldn’t think a car wash would be the kind of place that pays attention to the environment. But this one is.

It’s trying to become more sustainable — putting back what it takes away.

“What we’d like to do is, we’d like to be a closed system, a closed loop.”

Frank Nicoletti is the manager of this car wash in Duluth Minnesota.

“That’s the goal of the whole Natural Step is to be closed loop, meaning nothing goes in or out, and you just recycle the whole time. Of course, how feasible it is we don’t know. ”

Nicoletti is trained as a biologist. He’s the kind of guy who spends a lot of time watching the hawks as they migrate across the western tip of Lake Superior. It’s right across the street from the car wash.

His concern about nature is bubbling over into his business.

When a local non-profit group brought in Natural Step experts, Nicoletti and a dozen other business people signed up to learn how ecosystems work, and how they could operate their businesses more sustainably. They started looking over their operations from top to bottom to see how they could make them more earth-friendly.

One big change they’ve made at the car wash is switching to a biodegradable detergent. That’s not required by law, but it’s one of the principles of the Natural Step program — to reduce the use of man-made toxic substances.

“Everything that’s on line here is non-persistent so it breaks down in the environment.”

As cars move through the wash, the first flush of soapy water is captured in a pit the below the floor, and re-used.

The rest of the waste water is treated at the local sewage treatment plant, so grease and oil and other pollutants aren’t going into Lake Superior. Around the country, most car washes send their waste water to treatment plants, and Frank Nicoletti says it’s better for lakes and streams when people use a car wash instead of doing it on the driveway at home.

Here, the used oil from the lube operation is another part of that closed loop.

“We have two special boilers in our basement that actually recycles the oil and heats part of the building as well as heating all of the hot water.”

And the company recycles the cans and bottles they haul out of the cars they wash. They use the money from the recycled trash to give the people who work here a free lunch once a month.

“The amount of trash that comes out of these vehicles is unbelievable. We’re actually putting less trash in the garbage can now that we’re recycling, which is a great thing, and we’re also helping our guys out by giving them lunch once a month on these recycled cans.”

That’s another part of the Natural Step. It says a sustainable business will make sure its employees can meet their needs. And since they started recycling the trash from the cars, a lot of the workers are recycling at home now too.

Frank Nicoletti says he’d like to make the business fit in with nature even more — by rebuilding the roof.

“I’d love to make butterfly garden up there, and that will actually clean the air. Because the butterfly migration and the dragonfly migration through the lakeshore here is just huge. I mean, there are days when the dragonflies are going by, you can see a million — of different species.”

When they’ve finished a year’s worth of training and work, the car wash and the other businesses trying out the Natural Step approach will share their experiences with others in the community.

Frank Nicoletti says it’ll be like a pebble dropped in a pond. There’s no telling how far the ripples will go.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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