Cleaner and Greener

Overview

Objectives/Goals As a child I spent many Saturday mornings washing the car with my dad. I had no idea that what I was doing was wrong, and impacting the environment in such a strong way. I watched as the suds reached the storm drain but could never really comprehend the toll it was taking on our sea life. But now I understand and would like to help shed some light on the effect of car pollutants on Santa Cruz County shores, and marina. The main point of this project was to reasearch the different ways to cut down on pollution and water usage while washing your car. Methods/Materials For this project I used four soaps with different washing methods. The car was split up into six different sections, and was washed with the corespondng method of wash and soap. From the wash I was looking for the most conserving wash, and the one to give the best quality. Under consideration for finding the most conservational wash is that even after washing your car the pollution from the towels you wash will after being treated at the waste water treatment plant will still be 15% toxic and released into the bay. To figure out the washing quality I first judged the wash's quality by eye, then took a 3"x3" square, and by taking a dry, a water, and a vinegar swab and take down the results. Results My results showed that a new kind of wash, waterless car wash, was tied for the best quality with the traditional wash. This was amazing because while being tied for the best wash it also used no water and the only pollution it gave was from washing the towels. Conclusions/Discussion The results of this project do not support my hypothesis. I thought that the environmentally friendly car soap with the modified wash would be the best for the environment while giving the best wash. The true winner of this test was the waterless car soap, which was the least pollutant, saved the most water, and gave the best quality wash. This was truly an unexpected outcome. I believe that in the future this new brand of car wash will be very popular, and eventually be the most demanded soap for washing cars.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Environmental Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1213

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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