The Government have responded to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on hand car washes, agreeing with recommendations to update pollution prevention guidance on the Gov.uk website, and writing to major supermarkets to remind them that hand car washes must have appropriate drainage to tackle pollution.
In its response to the Committee report, the Government did not accept a recommendation to introduce a trial licensing scheme for hand car washes, suggesting that a voluntary pilot scheme would be a more achievable approach.
ACS chief executive James Lowman said: “We welcome the Government’s response on hand car washes, which will take further steps toward ensuring that all hand car washes are compliant with environmental regulations. Tackling unregulated hand car washes is important to stop the damaging impact they have on the environment, as well as the potential impact on the people working within them. ACS will continue to support voluntary schemes to improve compliance in the hand car wash sector including the Safer Car Wash App and the Responsible Car Wash Scheme.”
ACS previously responded to the Environmental Audit Committee’s call for evidence on hand car washes calling for the role of licensing to be considered as long as this did not place burdens on the majority of compliant businesses. The full submission is available here: https://cdn.acs.org.uk/public/lobbying/acs_submission_-_hand_car_washes.pdf
ACS has produced a graphic detailing the key differences between hand car wash and automated car wash from an environmental perspective, which is available here: https://cdn.acs.org.uk/public/13.iv-_cwcg_car_wash_diagram.pdf
