Our volume of repairs and fleet bikes does not make it necessary for a rag service (which is very important- see previous threads on fires).

We use blue shop towels and put them in our non recyclable landfill bound waste.

I am not aware of a method to reclaim or separate the grime, metal and oils from disposable shop towels ( the cotton reinforced paper ones).

Towel or rag services do this I am assuming. What do they do with the waste water? Do they treat the water? Glean the metal shavings that may be suspended in the grime? Separate the oil from the dirt? Interesting things to ponder but I wonder if it is something that is scalable down to a small shop or household level.

Tom Martin

ASPCC bike program coordinator

Cascade

Sent on the go. Please excuse brevity and typos.

On Oct 9, 2015, at 12:10 PM, dontito@videotron.ca wrote:

We’re looking into the disposal problem for oily and greasy rags generated in bike shops.

1. I’d like to get an idea of the amount of this waste generated in different shops as a function of shop activity.

2. Where do your dirty rags go?

3. Some shops use commercial services that supply clean rags and collect and clean them after they’ve been used. If you’re familiar with this kind of service do you know the cost? Do you know what sort of cleaning treatment they use and what happens to that effluent?

4. Anybody found creative ways to detoxify this shop waste?

Thanks!

Donnie

SantroVélo, Montréal

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