Cleaner-times Environmental Article

Shop Vacs have a very short life, and are not made for continuous duty. I have burned them up in less then two hours doing recovery at a pressure washing site.
 
Cleaner Times Article

Ron,

Thanks for letting me know about this comment thread mentioning our company so I could respond.

I appreciate your efforts to make sure the representation of our industry in national magazines is accurate. Unfortunately, the premise of your video and many of the other remarks in this thread were based on inaccurate perceptions.

We were hired to clean the grease spill and the alley all the way to the street. The grease had been tracked for almost a full block.

I'm including a link to the post and video on on our website for those who care to see it. http://www.washonwheels.net/waste-w...-a-grease-spill-at-a-denver-restaurant-video/

The recovery dam that you mention in your video was set up half way down the alley, then moved to the end to wash the second half. The drain cover you mention was irrelevant to our water recovery - it just happened to be in the lowest spot halfway down the alley. We know it wasn't a storm drain.

In keeping with all our efforts to represent the pressure washing industry as professionals, it would usually be more appropriate to contact the company before anything is posted about them to prevent any misunderstandings.

Regards,

Joel Shorey, President
Wash On Wheels
 

I agree that be worried if a guy shows up in a New Unit.

Are you Aware that if our national Association people get there way your equipment is obsolete ???

Here's My response to your Answer above.




Here's the Dumpster Video

 
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Great response Ron.

There are many ways to handle a spill, even more when you have more modern equipment and knowledge instead of doing things the way things were done 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, times have changed along with technology, cleaning methods and equipment.

Just because you have a video out there and promoting your company, remember that this is you representing the industry so try to make it look like you are helping the environment, not letting chemicals run down the street, even though they might get vacuumed up later on, about 300' +/- away from the spill, there are better ways of handling this type of situation.

I agree Ron about pouring chemicals out of a 5 gallon pail, there are more modern methods of doing this and not look like you just fell off the turnip truck and don't know what you are doing.

I would just try to make it look more professional because more and more customers are learning what is the right way of doing things, learning about the CWA, learning about how things are done by the pro's and by the hacks and you want to be seen in a good light by the customers.

I also would not show how the vacuum is not picking up all the wash water and chemicals running down the street past the mop bucket, berm and vacuum like it does in the video, there are better ways of doing this and catching all the wash water and chemicals without letting some of it run past the containment area. This could be something as simple as not-properly trained employees, it could be lack of attention to the cleaning situation or it could even be the case of someone does not care too much about the job or the environment, who knows. In case someone does not know what I am talking about or just does not have a clue, look at the time of 37 to 40 seconds into the video of cleaning the grease spill, this shows it clear as day to what I am talking about.
 
Ron,

Thanks for letting me know about this comment thread mentioning our company so I could respond.

I appreciate your efforts to make sure the representation of our industry in national magazines is accurate. Unfortunately, the premise of your video and many of the other remarks in this thread were based on inaccurate perceptions.

We were hired to clean the grease spill and the alley all the way to the street. The grease had been tracked for almost a full block.

I'm including a link to the post and video on on our website for those who care to see it. http://www.washonwheels.net/waste-w...-a-grease-spill-at-a-denver-restaurant-video/

The recovery dam that you mention in your video was set up half way down the alley, then moved to the end to wash the second half. The drain cover you mention was irrelevant to our water recovery - it just happened to be in the lowest spot halfway down the alley. We know it wasn't a storm drain.

In keeping with all our efforts to represent the pressure washing industry as professionals, it would usually be more appropriate to contact the company before anything is posted about them to prevent any misunderstandings.

Regards,

Joel Shorey, President
Wash On Wheels

Thanks for your response Joel. Right now we are up against one of our own orgs promoting reclaim in all instances where hot water is used. That effectively means no quality cleaning at all without recovery no matter how frequently the sites are serviced.

One of the problems with that is the off property discharge.

For example, where did this recovered greasy water end up?
How did it get there?
What were the legal requirements in Denver for you to move the recovered water off property and take to another location?
Once you've moved it are you able to dump it in your own sewer?
How did you get a permit for that? I know that here in Las Vegas we can dump it on property into the sewer, but I am not allowed to bring contaminated water to our shop even though I have an RV dump built on the property.

As far as the video goes the final destination of the reclaimed water is just one of the questions.

Why were there no dry absorbents used first? For grease and oil spills that is a pretty standard BMP.

I mentioned that my son cleaned a full out grease spill of over 400 gallons a couple of weeks ago. It was similar to what you encountered but on a much larger scale. Bobcats were brought in and they dumped a few tons of sand and dirt on the spill first, then they removed as much as possible and put it in their own waste container.

Chris cleaned the rest into three big piles and they repeated the process of disposing of the sand and dirt. What was left was three smaller areas that he cleaned, vacuumed, filtered and threw the solids in the dumpster and disposed of the remaining water onsite so as not to transport any wastewater and to remain within the laws of our state.

Joel, we are being treated by some municipalities and even by on of our own orgs as if we are the problem, as if we are causing pollution. We are here to REDUCE or even eliminate pollution. We are fighting a PR battle.

While your video is very good about showing great work and outstanding results, the sight of the chemicals being poured down (apparently straight) while perfectly acceptable in lots of cases (Ron and I are different on this) may serve as future ammo against our industry in the PR war.

The video also leaves the impression that you just take the water in your truck and go on your merry way where it magically becomes spring water somewhere. That kind of misconception is why government regulators are trying to make us pick up the water and take it offsite. It's because it is a convenient solution tied up all pretty and in a box until someone says "Hey, what can I legally do with this water?" The answer is so varied state by state and city by city, that leaving the wrong impression about how "easy" it is to be compliant could leave a lot if guys with HUGE fines.

We don't need that kind of ammo for our foes out on the web.

I think that's some of what Ron is trying to say.
 
Great response Tony.

For most restaurants, this kind of spill can be easily contained on-site without hauling away anything, even when washing the property and without overloading their systems.

Using the dry compounds helps a lot with the cleanup, especially on the larger spills like what Tony mentioned.
 
Here is the only picture we have of the one Chris just cleaned. The total length was 300ft.

Those wet spots are straight grease. No water had been laid down yet.

43efc411-41ee-1448.jpg


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What caused the grease spill? Grease recovery truck leaking or leave a valve open?
 
Thanks for telling us about it Tony.

I bet there was a lovely aroma in the workplace. hahahahaha

Just wondering why you chose sand as the absorbent instead of the others that are available.

With all that grease, you could have had a huge fish fry! hahahahaha

That is a shame that the container rusted out, I bet they will be checking all their other containers and replacing them so it does not happen again.

Glad you guys got the job, I bet you impressed them with your knowledge of cleaning and doing the job professionally.
 
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