Surface Water Management Division

Landowner Guides to Streamside Living

Wash Your Vehicle at a Carwash

Fuel, oil, antifreeze, copper, and zinc are common pollutants from your vehicle.

Fuel, oil, and antifreeze drip onto roads. Bits of copper and zinc wear off your brake pads and fall onto roads. Rain turns those powdered metals and chemicals into a poisonous soup that is sprayed over your vehicle as you drive.

When you wash your vehicle on your driveway or in your yard, those pollutants and your soap can flow into storm drains and ditches that discharge into your stream.

Remember: Most storm drains flow directly to streams and rivers that flow into Puget Sound!

By washing your vehicle at a carwash, you can send those pollutants, along with your dirty soap, to a wastewater treatment plant where they belong.