How to save water when washing your car

● Avoid washing your car on the driveway with a hose as it wastes water and allows dirt, grease and detergents to run down drains. Place it on a grassy area instead, to minimise run-off.

● Try to use vegetable oil based soaps to wash your car, but if you do use car shampoos, always wash your car on the lawn. Car sham- poos contain phosphates similar to those found in fertilisers.

● Use a sponge and bucket or watering can. It takes a little more time than using a hose but saves water.Washing your car with a hose typically uses four or five times as much water as the sponge-and- bucket option.

● Consider reusing your laundry rinse water to wash the car. Using grey water, as it’s known, is a good way of getting twice as much use out of a precious resource.

● Wash your car in the shade – slower evaporation helps conserve water and avoids streaks on the paint as the car dries.

● Don’t bother buying expensive finishing    treatments. A    chamois    and vigorous rubbing is the best way to achieve a streak-free finish.

● Try using a commercial spray to clean your car. It cleans and polishes without using any water or chemicals    and    is    biodegradable. All    you need to do is rub with a towel or microfibre cleaning cloth.

 

● If you don’t want to clean your car yourself, take it to a car wash. It will probably use less water than a hose, and the oil from your car will be diverted into the sewer, not into the stormwater drain. Many car wash com- panies are now recycling their water.