It is now forbidden to wash your car, neither in your garden nor in a car wash. Decision of the Mayenne prefecture last week, because the Mayenne (France) water points are low. Station bosses plan to lose a lot of treasury.
It is now forbidden to wash your car, neither in your garden nor in a car wash. Decision of the Mayenne prefecture last week, because the Mayenne water points are low. Station bosses plan to lose a lot of cash. This concerns the 3 territories of Mayenne and Oudon placed in red on the map of the prefecture but not the areas of Sarthe upstream and downstream as well as Mayenne upstream west yet on heightened alert.
Motorists were a little surprised when they arrived at the Mayenne cleaning stations. “I don’t have a garden at home, I have no choice but to come here to wash my car, even if it means risking a fine,” laments Kelly, in one of the Laval car washes. “I wasn’t even aware of it, and since it’s still open, I thought it was good,” explains Jean, just before turning around, for fear of being checked.
Some washing stations in Mayenne have therefore decided to completely stop their activity. Others remain open because emergency vehicles, taxis or even funeral directors have the right to clean the bodywork and the windshield for sanitary reasons. Individuals risk up to 1,500 euros in fines in the event of non-compliance with the rules.
“Cleaning at home consumes much more than our stations”
A decision of the prefecture of Mayenne which angers the managers of the washing stations. For them, their activity consumes very little water. “We are water users and not consumers”, analyzes the boss of the Blue Elephant in Saint-Berthevin. “The water used to clean the cars is stored, then filtered to return to our circuits. What bothers the prefecture is the somewhat long delay for the water to return,” he continues.
Another fear is that customers wash their cars at home in secret. “A station wash is 50 to 70 liters, at home with the hose it’s 250 to 300 liters of water. Ecologically it’s not great”, explains Ludovic Fraboulet, the manager of Mouss ‘Auto in Laval. , forced to completely close its activity. “And if we add to that the particles of petrol and oil that fall into the garden, it pollutes the soil even more”.
For the moment, no date of resumption of activity is envisaged by the prefecture of Mayenne because it depends on the rainfall to come in the department. But if the decree lasts until next October, some like Ludovic Fraboulet will be forced to go out of business.
