Car Washing Bays are the order of the day in Accra and other towns. It is a swarm business in Ghana as the turnover appears to be good.
People love their cars, and so they spend time on their cars. Indicators abound, and these include the rush to buy cars by life’s upstarts due to the status symbol on cars, and the fact that motorists speed across pedestrian crossings, yet they won’t let go if their vehicles took a knock in heavy traffic. The affected driver would stop and take all the details of the one who wronged him, regardless of the heavy traffic their stoppage incurs.
The fact is, water is scarce these days and so many have found solace in washing bays where water-pumping machines gush water from hoses to wash away dirt on vehicles. So the procedure for cleaning or removing dirt is effective.
However, water doesn’t come easy in many parts of the city of Accra and elsewhere in Ghana, an issue compounded by the pollution of water bodies by the widespread nature of mining in the country and often translated into high costs for domestic and industrial consumers. These nudges us to re-examine the activities of car washing bays with regard to their use of water.
The water used on cars is not re-harvested for other uses, mind you it is treated water that is used at the bays but which is unavailable in many homes. In the communities, you will find water tankers supplying households with the product, which is further overstretched by the growing population.
No doubt the car wash business attracts patronage, thus a véritable source of tax revenue for the government.
It is the element of wastage of water that is troubling as the re-cycling of the resource for even backyard gardening or sanitary purposes is of more crucial value than the primary application at the bays.
If these are anything to go by, can we also explore the alternative of dugout wells or boreholes for use at the bays? Then we can redirect the water ducts from the bays to residential compounds.