96% of our wash water never leaves the yard
Reuse is only genuinely better if the washing does not undo the saving. This is the part of the operation we are proudest of and the one nobody asks about.
- Sheet
- 93
- Revision
- 2026-10
- Scale
- 1:1
- Drawn at
- Peoria IL
Reuse has a water bill
Washing a 275-gallon container properly takes roughly sixty gallons of water the obvious way. Four thousand containers a year is 240,000 gallons — and at that point your environmental story has a hole in it.
| Approach | Fresh water per container | Where the water ends up | Annual fresh water, 4,000 units |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-loop pressure wash | ≈ 60 gal | Storm drain or sewer | 240,000 gal |
| Partial recovery | ≈ 22 gal | Partly sewer | 88,000 gal |
| Our closed loop | 4.1 gal | Recovered, filtered, reused | 16,400 gal |
Capture
Every bay and every square foot of the paved working yard drains to a 6,000-gallon underground sump. Nothing reaches the storm system.
Separate
Oil-water separator, then settling for solids. Sludge is drummed and handled by a licensed processor with a manifest.
Filter
Bag filtration to 25 micron, then cartridge filtration to 5 micron for recirculated rinse duty.
Reuse
Filtered water returns to pre-rinse and detergent cycles. Only the final rinse draws fresh potable water.
Six things about the loop
- Paving the yard was the first capital project after the bay itself — gravel means runoff you cannot account for.
- Caustic cycles are neutralised and verified by pH before anything enters the recovery sump.
- The recovery loop is not used for food-grade final rinses. Those are potable, single-pass, and sampled.
- Make-up water covers evaporation, sludge removal and the final rinse. That is the 4.1 gallons.
- Filter media is the one consumable we have not yet found a recycling route for. It is in the 3%.
- Winter operation needs heat tracing on the recovery lines; we budget for it rather than switching to open-loop in January.
- Recovery sump
- 6,000 gal, underground, below all three bays
- Separation
- Oil-water separator plus settling chambers
- Filtration
- 25 micron bag, then 5 micron cartridge
- Recovery rate
- 96% of water used
- Fresh water per container
- 4.1 gal (2025 average)
- Discharge to storm system
- Zero
Where every gallon goes
| Stage | Source | Volume per container | Destination | Recovered? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heel removal | — | ~1 gal recovered product | Drummed, licensed processor | No — manifested out |
| Pre-rinse | Recovered, filtered | 22 gal | Back to the sump | Yes |
| Caustic cycle | Recovered, heated to 180°F | 27 gal | Neutralised, back to the sump | Yes |
| Neutralising rinse | Recovered | 14 gal | Back to the sump | Yes |
| Final rinse | Fresh potable | 4 gal | Sump, then make-up loss | Partly |
| Bay washdown | Recovered | Varies | Back to the sump | Yes |
- Recovery sump
- 6,000 gal, underground, below all three bays
- Separation
- Oil-water separator plus settling chambers
- Filtration stage 1
- 25 micron bag
- Filtration stage 2
- 5 micron cartridge for recirculated rinse duty
- Annual water used
- 1,142,000 gal (2025)
- Annual fresh make-up
- 46,000 gal
- Sludge manifested out
- 8.4 tons (2025)
- Discharge to storm system
- Zero
What scale changes
| Volume per year | Realistic approach | Water cost | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 200 containers | Open-loop triple rinse to drain | Negligible | Keep records — they move your resale band |
| 200–1,000 | Worth modelling recovery | Material | Discharge consent and sewer limits |
| 1,000–4,000 | Recovery equipment or outsource | Significant | Sludge handling becomes its own problem |
| Over 4,000 | Build the loop properly or outsource | Large | Half-measures are where the water goes |
- Drain the heel first. Everything downstream is cheaper and more effective once the sump is empty.
- Rinse through the open valve so the valve body is cleaned too — this is the step most operations skip and the reason their valves still smell.
- Contact time beats pressure. Hot caustic recirculating for twenty minutes removes what a pressure washer only redistributes.
- Neutralise and verify before anything enters a recovery tank, not after.
- Keep the record: cycle, temperature, operator, date, serial. A wash you cannot document is a wash that did not happen to the next buyer.
Is 96% recovery actually achievable at small scale?
The percentage, yes. The capital, often not. The sump, separator and two-stage filtration only pay back above roughly a thousand containers a year, which is why outsourcing is the honest answer for most sites below that.
What happens to the sludge?
Drummed and manifested to a licensed processor — 8.4 tons in 2025, partly routed to energy recovery. A sludge-to-fuel partnership is one of our dated commitments for 2029.
Do you ever switch to open-loop in winter?
No. Winter operation needs heat tracing on the recovery lines and we budget for it, because switching to open-loop for a quarter would be the easy cheat and it would make the annual figure meaningless.
Can the recovered water be used for food-grade washing?
For pre-rinse and detergent stages, yes. The final rinse on a food-grade release is single-pass potable water, sampled for the lab, and is never recovered into product contact.