Sparkling clean cars at a cost of 48,000 gallons of water a day

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

* Service stations around the city wasting water, let tanks overflow to maintain maximum pressure


By Muhammad Aayan

LAHORE: The city’s service stations – which total in at around 300 – consume a staggering 48,000 gallons of groundwater a day while washing hundreds of cars, according to a Daily Times survey.

A service station employee from Gulberg said stations filled their water tanks “round the clock using motor pumps that draw groundwater”, to maintain maximum water pressure while washing cars. “Even if the tanks start overflowing ... the motor pumps are not switched off, because the tanks must always be filled to capacity to maintain maximum pressure in pipes.” A customer, who identified himself only as Imran, said he preferred service stations to washing his car at home because “the water pressure washes away the dirt within minutes ... if I wash the car myself, it takes me more than an hour and there are always stains left behind. I, therefore, get my car washed at a service station twice a week,” he said. Another service station employee said, “I have been doing this job for six years now, and have washed thousands of cars ... we have always had plenty water to waste. Our station is on a main road, and customers start arriving early in the morning. Normally, we wash 22 cars before midnight.” He said station employees also “play water games, especially in the summers when the temperature is really high”.

“We also use water to wash the service station and pieces of cloth used in car washing ... 50 gallons a day are easily wasted doing this. Frankly, we are too tired to be guilty about wasting water,” he said. While the high-pressure water pipes used by service stations can easily fill a two-gallon container within 10-15 seconds, the pipes are kept running for at least five minutes for each car. A complete car wash takes around 15 minutes, and during the entire process, more than 12 gallons of water are used. Sami Khan, chairman of All Pakistan Petrol Pump Association, told Daily Times, there were more than 700 petrol stations in Lahore, and most of them offered car-wash services.

“Water wastage can be countered by the men who wash the cars. It’s very difficult to monitor water wastage at every station ... it’s only up to the workers”, he said. A service station manager, Asad Shah, said business was not the same as it was a few months ago because of load shedding. “Load shedding has affected our business really badly.”