Aurora
October 02, 2008 10:17 PM
By: Sean Pearce
An Aurora entrepreneur is hoping his new waterless car wash will help take a bite out of grime.
The new product, dubbed Eco-Green, is the brain child of Jeff Lerman, who said the idea for a waterless wash and wax sprang from a desire to be able to clean a car without all the mess and wasted water. From there, all it took was a little research, some trial and error and plenty of patience, he said.
“I was just looking at my dirty car one day and got thinking there has to be an easier way to clean it without all of the mess and spending four hours of my time,” Mr. Lerman said.
“I started goofing around in the basement with the idea of taking different detergents and waxes and trying to meld the two together.”
The result of Mr. Lerman’s early experimentations was the forerunner of Eco-Green and constituted a two-in-one car wash and wax that required no water.
All it required was a cloth and a little elbow grease.
This early version of the product was a big hit among Mr. Lerman’s friends and neighbours and a fair amount of the homemade variety was brewed up over the years. It was time consuming, however, to get the mix right.
And that might have been the end of the story as the formula was essentially shelved, as no one outside of his social circle seemed interested.
It wasn’t until 10 years later he revisited his old idea.
“My father, Paul, saw this stuff one day and said, ‘What’s this?’” Mr. Lerman said. “I told him that it was a waterless car wash and wax, but no one was interested in the idea. (My father) said ‘Get this to a chemist.’”
The chemist took a look into the formula’s composition and refined it. The finished product is something that instills its inventor — who prefers the term innovator — with pride.
With so much environmental awareness today, it seems Eco-Green’s time may have finally arrived, Mr. Lerman said.
“Certain times of the year, for example, they plead with you to not wash your car or, if you must, to use a bucket because washing your car wastes 20 gallons of water,” he said.
“If you use the bucket, then it defeats the purpose, because you’re washing with dirty water and when you’re done all of that dirt and soap goes into the sewer.”
Eco-Green is completely biodegradeable, Mr. Lerman said, adding it will clean and shine any automotive surface safely and without water. It also works on glass, rims, recreational vehicles and boats, he said.
“I used this on my boat and got another five knots out of it,” Mr. Lerman said. “It took the algae right off.”
Another source of pride for Mr. Lerman is the fact Eco-Green is made in Canada and now sold in Zellers stores across the region. He’s even working out the possibility of conducting some in-store demonstrations.
Skeptics, he added, are more than welcome.
“I get a lot of skepticism from people asking me, ‘Will it scratch my paint?’,” Mr. Lerman said. “The answer is no, because if it did I’d be out business. Period.”