What Should You Do With Car Wash Pit Sludge?
You’re a car wash owner.
You clean cars.
If there is a spotless car rolling around your town, it may very well be one of your customers.
But all that dirt has got to go somewhere.
That’s where car wash sludge pits come into play. Your car wash water reclaim system filters the wash water from cars to reuse in initial rinse cycles. After doing all the dirty work, the pits themselves then need cleaning every 3-4 months to remove the sludge that’s accumulated in them.
The question is: what should you do with the pit sludge?
Are You Asking the Right Question?
Chances are, hazardous waste is not something that you handle on a regular basis. It includes waste that ranges from being somewhat to very harmful for the environment.
It may be your knee-jerk reaction to turn to Google with the question “is pit sludge hazardous?”
But this simple search may prove ineffective.
Classifying every sample of waste that has the potential to be hazardous is an extensive process that the EPA prefers not to tackle.
In the Introduction to Hazardous Waste Identification manual, the EPA has this to say:
“…listing a waste as hazardous demands extensive study of that waste by EPA. EPA lacks the resources to investigate the countless types of chemical wastes produced in the United States – the hazardous waste listings simply cannot address all dangerous wastes. Another disadvantage of the hazardous waste listings is their lack of flexibility.”
As the manual goes on to explain, the lack of flexibility in hazardous waste listings opens up room for loopholes and clever workarounds.
Let’s face it. When waste is classified as hazardous, your waste disposal process becomes a hassle. Any business owner who knows that time and hassle is money would be a fool not to find a workaround.
Shift Your Focus to Avoid Pitfalls in Regulation Holes
This lack of specificity on every single type of waste, however, shifts the question from “is pit sludge hazardous?” to “could pit sludge potentially contain hazardous chemicals?”
It’s this second question that we covered in a previous article “Is the Sludge from Car Wash Pits Hazardous?”
By shifting the focus to what chemicals the waste could potentially contain, the subject is framed with the broader mindset.
This helps you to avoid the pitfalls of gaps in regulation. By exercising caution when disposing of sludge, you can mitigate risks of broad assumptions. Generally, pit sludge is not hazardous but assuming this means you can dump it like regular waste could come back to bite you.
Furthermore, classifying waste as hazardous according to the EPA hazardous waste listings isn’t the only way that waste is regulated.
The Laws on Car Wash Waste Disposal
We all know from grade school that there are federal, state and municipality to many of the regulations that we must be mindful of to keep out of hot water.
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 is the federal law that contains some guidance on types of waste. According to “Understanding Regulated Non Hazardous Waste: What Is It, Anyway?” by PEGEX, the RCRA identifies a number of materials as regulated, non-hazardous waste. Some of these chemicals may be present in wash water runoff from the cleaning of vehicles.
It’s the RCRA that provides the backbone to EPA’s regulations and, as discussed above, their input on the specific subject of car wash pit waste is restricted. We can only gather from this law that we should be cautious about dumping pit sludge haphazardly.
State Laws for Car Wash Pit Waste
On the state level, the states of Washington and Illinois are two examples with readily available information online.
Washington Best Practices
According to the Washington Vehicle and Equipment Washwater Discharges: Best Management Practices Manual, sludge from car wash pits is seldom hazardous.
“The sludge generated in these systems seldom designates as a hazardous or dangerous
waste (per Chapter 173-303 WAC, Dangerous Waste Regulations), and it can usually be
disposed of in a solid waste landfill.”
However, the manual goes on to encourage car wash owners to check with their local health department or landfill operator to be sure and to test the sludge in all cases of doubt.
Illinois Best Practices
In the article “How Do I Handle My Professional Car Wash Wastewater?”, the necessity for caution when handling car wash pit sludge is emphasized. According to this article, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency allows for pit sludge to be dried and transported as special waste unless the sludge is certified as non-special.
Your State/Local Government May Have Different Regulations
It’s important to note that the best practices in Washington and Illinois may not apply to you if you operate a car wash in Virginia or North Carolina. Different states may have stricter or more lenient pit waste disposal regulations.
This also doesn’t scratch the surface on local regulations in your town or city.
The best course of action is to check with your local health department and your landfill operator to get a direct answer.
An Alternative Solution to DIY Pit Sludge Disposal
We’re specialists in handling car wash pit waste. Pit Crew has spent 25 years developing our employees, our equipment and our work schedules to focus on providing the best car wash pit waste removal service for car wash operators across the East Coast.
If you operate in one of the following states, you don’t have to worry about what to do with pit sludge. You can call 804-PIT-CREW and we’ll take it from there.
- Virginia
- Maryland
- North Carolina
- West Virginia
- Pennsylvania
- South Carolina
- Ohio
- Kentucky
- Georgia
- Tennessee
- Indiana
- Michigan
- Illinois
- Iowa
Chances are, if you’re curious about whether pit sludge is hazardous waste or not, you could benefit from talking to us. We’ll take the hassle out of car wash pit cleaning AND the hassle of what to do with the sludge that you scoop out. We don’t just dump the debris — we destroy it.
Call 804-PIT-CREW or fill out our contact page to get an estimate.
Additional Resources
https://www.epa.gov/hw/learn-basics-hazardous-waste
https://www.hazardouswasteexperts.com/understanding-regulated-non-hazardous-waste-what-is-it-anyway/
https://www.carwashforum.com/threads/pit-sludge-your-state-regulations.12360/
