Car wash PITS

[Phil]

Are any of you familiar with the contents of car wash pits? Most car washes need their pits emptied every few months. The stuff smells worse than S***.
I know it contains all of the chemicals used at the wash + whatever comes off the car. Is it safe to get this stuff on your skin? Does anybody know the proper way of disposing of it?

 

[CharlesW]

Are any of you familiar with the contents of car wash pits? Most car washes need their pits emptied every few months. The stuff smells worse than S***.
I know it contains all of the chemicals used at the wash + whatever comes off the car. Is it safe to get this stuff on your skin? Does anybody know the proper way of disposing of it?

I doubt that incidental contact would be too dangerous, but there is no way of knowing what may have been dumped in them. I think the companies that empty them use some type of sniffer device to check for gas, oil, chemicals. I was once told that the cost of disposing the stuff went up 400% if the sniffer picks up a certain level of contamination. That's one of the reasons that many DIY places are closed at night. Lots of stuff gets dumped in those pits.

Charles

 

[Phil]

Thanks for the education. A carwash near my home has been dumping it on the hillside causing it to run down into the city water. Who should I contact about this? Theres also chemical barrels all around the building in the wooded areas. Heres some pics. The community is really upset about this

 

[Scooter]

Most of them are picked up by a septic service. They will test teh contents of it and then put it in a leaching field to dry out and to have the solids disposed of.
As for a guy dumping it on a hillside, that is probably a violation of the clean water act. He is trying to save the cost of the dumping fees. There should be some kind of environmental department in your state, and possibly in your city, that would concern themselves with this. If you want to get really bad, you could grab a sample of the waste and mail it in to them to see what it actually contains and if it really is hazardous.

Scooter