Australia's Hand Wash Café Innovates Down Under

When it comes to innovation, the United States apparently doesn’t have the market cornered on creative carwashing. As one example, there is a small-but-growing chain of hand carwashes in Australia that has creatively applied technology to reduce its operating costs while enhancing its reputation and enriching the overall customer experience.

Hand Wash Café currently operates three locations in Queensland, with several others under construction. The hand carwash and café idea was the brainchild of Chris Johns, a well-known Brisbane and Australian rugby league hall of famer, in partnership with world cricket legend Ian Healy. Together they have created a high-quality, time-efficient hand carwashing service that boasts some uniquely popular advantages.

Bountiful Help from Mother Nature

Water is essential to sustaining all life; we simply can’t live without it. And if you’re in the business of washing cars, water is fundamental to your livelihood. Atmospherically, water comes from three basic places: the ground, our waterways and out of the sky.

Most carwashes use water that comes from underground, either via wells and aquifers or through a municipal water system. However, with the increase of drought conditions worldwide, many are returning to the fundamentals of capturing, containing and reusing rainwater as a supplement to our most basic needs. The easiest and most obvious use of rainwater is for irrigating landscaping. Other domestic uses include washing clothing and supplying toilets.

Given the growing challenge of restricted water use due to droughts, the owners of Hand Wash Café decided to harness and reuse rainwater as a major source of nonpotable water for the vehicle washing and rinsing process. After conducting a feasibility analysis of the costs, they invested several hundred thousand dollars to create a rainwater harvesting system that utilizes sedimentation, filtration, chlorination and cyclonic extraction of minute solids from captured rainwater that is harvested from the rooftop of their facility and stored in huge underground tanks.

A series of holding and processing tanks supply 500,000 liters of water for washing and rinsing vehicles in the retail operation. Although they are not completely self-contained, the majority of the washing process is fed by rainwater that supplements the closed-loop reclaim and recirculation system. Not a drop is wasted, and the conservation effort has been applauded by Australian governmental agencies, as well as by the International Carwash Association which several years ago recognized the Hand Wash Café with its Leadership in Innovation Award.

Hand Wash Café has demonstrated the most frugal use of water in professional carwashing simply by applying the age-old practice of harvesting rainwater. The Australian media has even called it the “world’s best practices process.”

Unfortunately, the United States is quite a bit more conflicted about rainwater harvesting, with no uniform national policy on its conservation and reuse. For now, it remains an issue dealt with individually from state to state, running the gamut from encouraging the use of rainwater to actually outlawing it. Thus, it makes good business sense to investigate what your particular state allows regarding rainwater harvesting.

Even limiting rainwater use to landscape maintenance is a good start in preparation for an eventual move toward an integrated system that supplements your current use of municipal water resources.

Hand Wash Café has created an identity of being an excellent environmental steward. Not only has rainwater collection helped the carwash reduce its municipal water use by 80 percent, saving the company thousands of dollars each month in overhead, the practice has fostered the sort of community appreciation that helps build