Treatment of Car Washing Unit Wastewater—A Review

Abstract

Rapidly growing population has resulted in exponential increase in the usage of the number of cars. As a practice of maintenance, the cars are washed periodically which draws enormous quantity of fresh water globally also the washing of cars bestows the pollutants like oil, grease, detergents, and dirt to the fresh water. This wastewater if untreated and directly mixes with the water stream, it causes pollution. World Health Organization reports that the quality of fresh water in earth is under constant pressure. This paper discloses importance of treatment of car wash wastewater by stating the environmental impacts of untreated car wash wastewater and also presents a global scenario which includes the quantity of water allocated to wash a car with the reclamation measures, regulations followed by them. This paper also states the quantity of water generally needed to wash a car, characteristics of water after washing, with a review on some of the works done so far to treat the car wash wastewater and also the challenges in reclamation of car wash wastewater.