Startup’s Plant-Based Car Wash Helps India Save Millions of Litres of Water Every Day
With a running water hose, it takes 75-100 litres of water to wash your car. Replace that with just a few drops of this wash!
This article has been sponsored by GO Waterless
Nitin Sharma had a carefully-mapped out career path. He completed his BBA from the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education(IASE) and took over his father’s automobile business.
While things went according to the plan, some operational challenges in the business forced him to halt and introspect. This led him to come up with a business model that would not only help him overcome his challenges but could also help many others for generations to come.
From a Businessman to Water Warrior
“I was handling a mechanic workshop as well as dealerships in battery, tyres and other car services in Chhattisgarh. But there was a recurring operational problem that we just could not overcome. During the summers, most of the water sources would dry up, and this posed a massive challenge for us since we needed water to clean the cars before delivering them to the customers. Consequently, repeated lapses in that area were harming our business. Lack of adequate water supply is a problem that ails a majority of the country, and this situation made me realise how bad it is,” Nitin mentions.
He was right, and a report titled Composite Water Management Index published by NITI Aayog in 2018, confirms this. According to the report, India is undergoing one of the worst water crises in its history and it has impacted more than 600 million lives in India. The report further added that 70 per cent of drinking water in India has been contaminated and placed the country at 120th position in a list of 122 countries in the water quality index.
With all this alarming information, Nitin began to search for alternatives. It was at that time when a relative told him about the concept of waterless car washing which was popular in the west. Sensing a solution, he dug deeper and found that spray cleaning was indeed a viable alternative to conventional cleaning with water. But there was yet another challenge to overcome.
“Most of the solutions available are full of chemicals and harmful for the environment, and since I genuinely wanted to save the environment by working to solve the water problem, I couldn’t opt for them,” says Nitin. In 2017, he decided to create his own plant-based organic spray car cleaner that could replace the traditional practice of car washing with water and soap.
After months of research and development with the help of a few chemical engineers, he was able to develop a plant-based lubricant cleaning spray. This was followed by several stages of trials and experimentations.
It took almost two years of hard work, and the innovative lubricant spray was ready. To implement it, he pooled an investment of Rs 10 lakh from his family and wife, Kshama Sharma, and launched the startup with her in October 2019. They named their product GO Waterless.
How does it work?
When speaking about water conservation, we often overlook an important contributor to its scarcity — car washing.
“When washing your car at home, you usually use a bucket or a pipe. While it takes two buckets, which is approximately 40 litres to clean a car, consumption using a pipe increases to almost 75-100 litres. And in a service station, this goes up to 200-300 litres of water to wash a single car. Now imagine the amount of water wastage this leads to in a country which has millions of cars being washed every day. But every time you choose to use our waterless car washing service, you contribute to saving those billions of litres of water that otherwise would have gone down the drain,” he explains.
When it comes to similar dry spray-based cleaning techniques, a common critique is a problem of scratching when the dust is wiped off the surface. This problem, however, is addressed in case of GO Waterless. Their plant-based lubricant spray is made using nanotechnology that breaks down the dust particles and separates them from the surface, making it very easy to wipe off with a microfibre towel without any scratches.
“A simple spray, wipe, vacuum and polish, and your car is ready as new — without making the surrounding dirty or spending a single drop of water,” says Nitin, while also adding that it only takes 200 ml of the lubricant solution to clean an entire car at a time.
A doorstep service, GO Waterless caters to all your car cleaning needs, at prices that are sometimes even lower than conventional cleaning services.
One of its first users, Jenson Joseph shares: “I decided to use their services because of their water conservation efforts, and when I compared their prices with the traditional water-based cleaning services, I was quite shocked. Because not only is this technique quicker and less fussy than water-based technique but comparatively lighter on the pocket. I have an SUV and have been using their services for the past 8 months, almost every week. For 4 outer cleaning and polishing sessions plus 2 interior cleaning and vacuuming services, I pay just Rs 500. This is much affordable compared to other options.”
GO Waterless’ growth
“Most of our investment went into the launch of the company but I knew that scale of impact was very important for this initiative to work. The first focus is to encourage more and more people to save water. So, instead of opening a limited number of centres, I adopted a franchise model, opening up the services to as many cities in India as possible. The first one was Nagpur,” he adds.
Today, Nitin has not only found a solution to his problem but also manages to save lakhs of litres of water every day. GO Waterless has a presence in 9 cities across India including Nagpur, Navi Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Jammu, Siliguri, Aurangabad, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, with 18 franchises across the country. Many other franchises are coming up across India.
“From Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Gujarat to Assam, I want to have these franchise centres all across the country to help not only popularise this but also save gallons of water in the process,” he says in conversation with The Better India.
Nitin has big plans to scale the business and asserts that his primary goal is water conservation. “My goal is to give back to the environment by saving water. In the next three years, I plan to set up 500 franchises across India, provide training and jobs to over 20,000 people and through them save 1 trillion litres of water,” he says.
Starting from a range of Rs 149 for outer cleaning and 299 for complete cleaning, they provide cleaning services for all types of cars to their customers at their doorsteps. They also offer premium detailing services like paint protection, nano-coating, anti-rust coating, etc., with extra charges. To avail their services you can contact them here.
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