As recently reported by the BBC, we’re seeing the longest ongoing dry period since 1936. In the first three months of the year, England’s rainfall was down 26% and in Wales it was down 22%. As a result, the National Drought Group moved England into “Prolonged Dry Weather” status – the stage before a drought – at an emergency meeting.  At the time of writing, water authorities have leapt into action with imminent hosepipe bans announced in Hampshire, Sussex and Kent. 

But what does this mean in everyday life?  Well, the following activities are banned:

• Watering a garden using a hosepipe 
• Cleaning a private motor-vehicle using a hosepipe
• Watering plants on domestic or other non-commercial premises using a hosepipe
• Cleaning a private leisure boat using a hosepipe 
• Filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool
• Drawing water, using a hosepipe, for domestic recreational use
• Filling or maintaining a domestic pond using a hosepipe
• Filling or maintaining an ornamental fountain
• Cleaning walls, or windows, of domestic premises using a hosepipe
• Cleaning paths or patios using a hosepipe
• Cleaning other artificial outdoor surfaces using a hosepipe. 

In a worsening drought situation, the next step is to restrict non-essential use through non-essential use bans. These apply to households and commercial customers/businesses. Drought orders to bring this ban into effect are granted by the Environment Secretary. Users must be able to show that they have taken all necessary steps to save water and protect the environment, i.e., recycling, before being given indemnity.

Activities that would usually be restricted are as follows:

• Watering outdoor plants at a commercial premises such as a garden centre, fruit/veg growers, and producers
• Filling or maintaining a non-domestic paddling pool or swimming pool
• Filling or maintaining a pond
• Operating any mechanical vehicle wash
• Cleaning any vehicle, boat, aircraft or rolling stock /train.
• Cleaning any commercial premises
• Cleaning windows
• Cleaning industrial equipment (plant)
• Suppressing dust

Should the Drought order be enforced, that’s when the situation transforms dramatically. Industries that are likely to be severely affected are:

• Car and Commercial Washes 
• Agriculture
• Automotive
• Food and Beverage production
• Chemicals 
• Construction

Kirton offers a range of water recycling systems which will enable businesses to reuse water and continue to run during any drought order.  

How do I invest for the future?

A longer-term solution which people often overlook is Rainwater Harvesting. We’re all sometimes guilty of complaining about the weather, particularly as the seasons change and rainfall invariably increases. There is however a positive upside to this occasional abundance of water… it’s free!  We must recognise that this sustainable resource is readily accessible for onward integration into endless applications. Not making use of this asset represents a vast squandering of the potential savings which are available to operators and industries throughout the country who don’t always need mains quality water.

Take Agri-Food for example, a typical large broiler farm can consume millions of litres of water. Our rainwater equipment seamlessly provides sites with an automatic, multi-use water supply, subsequently reducing the farm’s dependency on the local mains water network, or costly and variable quality boreholes.

Pictured is the first of 2 recent RWH plants designed and manufactured for our industry partner. In this instance we’re collecting and treating the roof water fall to provide consistent, stable drinking water for high welfare poultry houses.

The systems can be tailored to fit a wide variety of industries and applications.

Get in touch to discuss how we can help you prepare and continue operating during this potentially challenging period.

Sales@kirton.co.uk

01509 504 565

Read the latest edition of Car Wash News which includes an article from Kirton.

It’s a sight becoming increasingly common in car parks, disused forecourts and waste land all over the UK. It is the sight an industry of taking a huge step backwards. The car wash business has become the wild west of the automotive support business, attracting the unscrupulous in search of a quick buck at the cost of irreversible damage to the planet and to the future of the many legitimate car wash operators.

It is estimated that there are around 10,000-20,000 hand car washes in the UK, offering £5 washes to a motoring public unaware of the true cost to the environment and the lives of the workers who deliver the services. Many of these operations are draining waste water directly into rain water drains, releasing gallons of untreated effluent into public waterways.

Concern about the environmental impact of these car washes and for the protection of exploited immigrant workers has prompted the Government to set up a special inquiry to examine how hand car washes compares to automatic ones. It will examine how they are regulated and what steps the Government might take to ensure hand car washes are operated sustainably.

A recent BBC article shows increasing pressure on the Government to take action over these unregulated car washes.

On the environmental side, the focus will be on examining how the industry is regulated in comparison with automatic car washes and whether providers could be using water more sustainably and doing more to prevent waste water, as well as dirt, oil and other contaminants, polluting rivers, streams and ground water.

Although the focus of the Committee’s inquiry will be on environmental issues, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commission (IASC) has produced a list of indications of exploitation at hand car washes where foreign workers are effectively slaves.

Mary Creagh, who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, said the anti-slavery commissioner had expressed concerns about conditions in the industry, amid reports of workers being housed eight to a room and not being paid the minimum wage.

Thousands of workers in Britain’s car washes are believed to be slaves – primarily men lured from Eastern Europe then trapped in debt bondage, forced to work in unsafe conditions, stripped of documents and subjected to threats, abuse and violence.

The recent death of a Romanian man in east London has highlighted concerns about how the industry operated.

Sandu Laurentiu was electrocuted while taking a shower in what police said were “dilapidated, cramped, rat-infested” living quarters beside the car wash where he worked in Bethnal Green.

The owner of the company was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence.

Ms Creagh said she wanted to know whether companies were complying with rules requiring Environment Agency permits, how they were disposing of chemicals and if there were alternatives to highly intensive agents.

An investigation by the Car Wash Advisory Service, in Nottingham in 2014, found most operators did not have planning permission, did not pay business rates and did not have permission to dispose of effluents through the sewers.

On the other side of the fence, legitimate automated car wash operators are playing their part in water conservation whilst at the same time reducing costs and improving their brand reputation. Water treatment technologies now offer solutions at all stages of the car wash process from treating the water at its source, reclaiming water for re-use and for the final disposal into the public drainage system,

In the context of water usage, automated car washes are pretty efficient using around 120 litres per wash compared with a home hand wash which can easily drain 480 litres at a time. The usual source of water is the mains supply, although some facilities are supplementing this with rainwater harvesting from the roof of the car wash and forecourt buildings. Depending on the quality of fresh water, some form of treatment will be required to remove impurities and soften the water. This is certainly the case for the final rinse where a spot free finish is desirable.

According to Jon West, managing director of Kirton Water Treatment Services, the main water use issue, however, does not lie at the water source but with what happens to the water after use.

A good reclaim system will recycle up to 90 per cent of all water used through a three-stage process. Firstly, the water is collected in a sludge interceptor which separates the large contaminants by allowing them to settle at the bottom of the tank. Next the water is passed through a cyclonic filter and finally through activated granular carbon vessel to remove any remain organics and chemicals. The recycled water can be further treated with dosed with an organic biocide or an oxidising agent. A final treatment of by reverse osmosis is required if a spot free rinse is offered.

Kirton has been providing water reclaim systems for many car wash operators and equipment suppliers for more than 40 years and has witnessed a sharp decline in the number of automated car washes, forced out of business by their unethical rivals.

“The cost of protecting the environment is falling on the shoulders of the few, whilst the many continue to damage legitimate business, the environment and the human rights of thousands of workers, “said West.

Kirton Water Treatment Services. www.kirton.co.uk

Kirton Water Treatment Services has joined the Car Wash Association to lend its support to the body’s lobbying efforts to prevent upregulating car wash operators from continuing to pollute the environment.

There are 38 million vehicles in the UK requiring washing with total car washing in the UK for all types of washes accounting for £1 billion turnover.

However, current legislation and environmental regulations tend to be ignored by most unregulated hand car wash businesses often with illegal employment conditions and unfair business practices forcing compliant car washes to close.

Pollution caused by car wash effluent through car wash solids and chemicals pose a serious threat to our environment and are key issues that the CWA addresses and lobbies against by collaborating with UK government to ensure enforcement and compliance.

The association provides advice and support to our members so that they are armed with all the information they need to offer a range of high quality car wash and valet facilities that meet all relevant industry regulations, to run a legitimate and well managed car wash business.

Jon West, managing director of KWTS, said: “A major part of our business is dedicated to providing treatment systems for car washes, it is only right that we support the trade body that represents bone fide operators.”

Kirton Water Treatment Services has taken delivery of three new vans to meet the demands of its growing business.

The Melton Mowbray-based firm specialises in designing, building, installing and servicing water treatment systems for industry and agriculture.

The new Ford vans, decked out with the company’s new livery, will be on-call 24 hours a day delivering spare parts and providing essential maintenance and repair for installations across the country.

The company was recently acquired by private investors who recognised the growing demand for technologies that help reduce the water footprint of an industry facing environmental pressure to use less water.

Jon West, the managing director, commented: “Our customers need our support around the clock to keep their systems operating at optimal levels. Our new fleet will be performing a vital role in this task and they are already clocking up the miles.”

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When Eddie Stobart was asked what he put his success down to, he was unequivocal. Clean trucks. He discovered that cleaning up the image of trucking had a big impact on sales and significantly reduced maintenance and repair costs. Even in 1985 when Stobart had 26 trucks, he would still clean the fleet himself. Continue Reading

Fresh out of the factory is this reverse osmosis system ready for delivery to a bus company wanting to eliminate spotting and streaking on the glass and paint of their fleet. Continue Reading

The next time you pull on your jeans, consider this: it has taken around 500 gallons of water to make them. The textiles industry is one of the most water-intensive businesses in the world consuming around 190m cubic metres of water annually – second only to the steel industry.

Read the full article !

There is a new crop in town. It’s nothing we can eat, but it provides a vital lifeline for our planet. It’s called rainwater harvesting which, as the name suggests, collects, processes and stores rainwater from the roofs on buildings. Continue Reading

The exponential growth in car sales in India is causing a water crisis in a land already suffering from severe drought.

In cities like Karachi, 80% of the car washes are using fresh water at the rate of 45 million litres per car wash per month. With more than 3,000 car wash station the city, the public supply is losing 135 billion litres a month. Continue Reading

Three new vehicle wash recycling units leave the factory bound for a public sector customer. The units take dirty water, passing it through several special filtering and flocculation processes to return clean water to the vehicle wash system. Find out more by contacting Kirton.

From cultivating barley right through to bottling, there is no doubt that it takes an exponential amount of water to make beer. The UK consultancy Water Strategies estimates it takes 300 litres of water to make one litre of beer. A WWF/SABMiller study suggests ratios anywhere from 60 to 180 to one. Even during the last stages in the production process, a typical pint of beer will have taken a further six pints of water to produce it. Continue Reading

The summer of 2018 provided a sobering example of how extreme weather is becoming the norm in the UK. After a heatwave that saw temperatures in excess of 35ºC, the hottest on record since 2015, the country was subject to heavy thunderstorms and the risk of flash floods. Such meteorological swings are not only a challenge for citizens and public service delivery bodies, but also pose a less obvious threat to industrial concerns by highlighting changes to one of the earth’s most precious resources: fresh water. Continue Reading