Above Ground Wash Water Treatment Unit
- Update Date:2007-03-16
Often when a small business opens to clean trucks, boats, rail cars, buses or automobiles they scramble to find an inexpensive unit to reclaim and clean the water, in fact what they are really looking for is a unit which can allow them to recycle mo
Often when a small business opens to clean trucks, boats, rail cars, buses or automobiles they scramble to find an inexpensive unit to reclaim and clean the water, in fact what they are really looking for is a unit which can allow them to recycle most if not all of the wash waste water. A typical washing operation might use 2200 to 5500 gallons of water per day, which needs treating. The contaminated water will contain things such as biodegradable soaps and cleaning products along with whatever comes off of whatever you are washing.
This means some heavy metals, asbestos from brakes, algae, inert dirt and some chemicals. This would seem to be a Piece of cake, not to bad. However finding the right system may not seem as easy as you think it is. There are so many different types of systems such as sequencing batch reactors, which will probably be too large for one? needs and biological treatment which would eat the solid waste, yet there would be little sludge to eat, although this is an option often used in car washes, however there are issues with this method effectively treating or eating the detergent used. Then there are many packaged systems that are designed for sewage. But with such small amounts of water being used none of these options really make too much sense you see? If you are considering such options then you are potentially looking in the wrong place if you are looking for something pre-made to buy. All this stuff exists already.
You might wish to talk to your soap or washing chemical supplier, but often when you do this the people at cleaning supply company seem to think it would be just dandy to dispose of any biodegradable product with no treatment at all, at least that is what one recently told an researching associate. I guess you see the problem, funny to think they sell these sorts of cleaning products at Wal-Mart in a mass retail capacity and refuse to address these issues, that is the real rub, think of the volume used each day running into storm drains, in god knows what level of ppm. If 40,000 do-it-yourselfers, DIY?, dump soapy chemicals into the ground water each day cleaning 40,000 items using 200 gallons each, imagine the sum of the pollution going into our water ways? A little soap is good for the environment, breaking down stuff, which should not be there, but what an incredibly dandy proposal on their part? Basically they sell the stuff and people use it, but those who use it do not seem to worry about the pollution; so much for the environmentalists?
So where can you get a really good above ground unit for an operation which generates under 10,000 Gallons Per Day of not very dirty water, but still enough to need treatment? Well there are number of places so let me help you here: Landa Corporation and ask about the WaterMaze:
http://www.landa.com/pages/showProductTypes.asp?areaID=4
Also Karcher makes an above ground unit.
http://www.karcher.ca/WTC/WTC%20600%20Water%20Purification.htm
http://asthma.about.com/od/otherequipmentreviews/fr/KarcherDS5500.htm
Or call Howard Krew: 480-517-1925 and mention my name, he can get you whatever you want by the end of the week. Also ask about the vacu-boom systems and comparisons. There is nothing he cannot build or get.
Some believe that it is okay to allow wash waste water to run into the wetlands and you could do that I suppose, but ground water issues could be a problem too, plus most likely this is illegal unless you can get a permit for such a system from the local county. You might be able to build a French ditch with rocks underneath like a leach line, if permitted with membranes underneath on top of concrete, buried in slots for removal and cleaning.
If you are smart and interested in what is available out there, there are some cool systems in Environmental Pollution News; you should be a subscriber:
http://engcen.tradepub.com/free/pen/
http://www.rimbach.com/home/penpage/pen.htm
Recently I talked with Brown and Root who were building a similar system to wash army tanks and return the water back to their system to use again due to cost of water in Kuwait. Closed loop would not be so bad really and a system above ground makes a lot of sense too. If you look at the competing Pressure Washing Company reclaim units you will see that they are mini-versions and similar to a carwash really. Simple enough, not too difficult, there are off the shelf equipment manufacturers. You can use a triple trap and then equipment to clean what comes out at the end to POTW standards, whatever they are, where you are. These are all things to think on when decided on the best choices for wash water above ground treatment systems.
"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs
