At the Veloworld workshop, there lives a mysterious machine full of tiny creatures which happily munch through the grease and grime of bike parts day in, day out.

What is this machine? It’s a ‘Rozone Smartwasher’ and it’s a pretty amazing piece of kit.

Using nature to fix nature

Bioremediation is one of the most innovative ways to tackle environmental damage by toxins and pollution through allowing nature to clean up the mess. When friendly oil-eating microbes digest oil, they transform it into harmless waste products such as water and carbon dioxide.

Micro-organisms are well known for their ability to break down a huge range of organic compounds and absorb inorganic substances. Currently, microbes are used to clean up pollution treatment in processes known as ‘bioremediation’. Bioremediation uses micro-organisms to reduce pollution through the biological degradation of pollutants into non-toxic substances. This can involve either aerobic or anaerobic micro-organisms that often use this breakdown as an energy source. (Philp, 2015)

Why is Bioremediation important in eco-friendly bike maintenance?

Water and normal cleaning products cannot effectively clean oil, grease and other contaminants which inevitability build up in a bike’s moving parts.

Cue the need for an effective degreaser which uses solvents to break down and clean this water-insoluble dirt.

“A solvent is simply a liquid that dissolves a solute. Water, for example, is a solvent but it can only dissolve certain types of compounds. In order to deal with grease and oil-based grime, we are talking about solvents based around organic compounds such as ethanol and other effective but harmful solvent molecules.” (Bracey, 2020)

Solvents can make their way into water sources to the detriment of aquatic life.

However, many traditional bike cleaners and degreasers are based on chemicals that are harmful to consume — both for humans and other animals and plants in the environment.

Solvents that make use of hydrocarbons such as paraffin and kerosene have a significant negative environmental impact.

“[Hydrocarbons] contribute to the greenhouse effect and climate change, deplete the ozone, reduce photosynthetic ability of plants, and increase occurrences of cancer and respiratory disorders in humans.” (Schab, 2018)

When used in the bike cleaning process these solvents can make their way into water sources to the detriment of aquatic life.

Bioremediation offers an alternative.

The Rozone parts washer delivers powerful cleaning performance using bioremediation as an alternative to solvent parts cleaning. — The *Rozone* parts washer delivers powerful cleaning performance using bioremediation as an alternative to solvent parts cleaning.

“Bioremediation is nature’s clever way of cleaning up. It's a safe environmentally-friendly way to handle many kinds of waste. In fact, this clever science was used in two of the world’s worst oil spills – the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska 1989 and the BP Deepwater Horizon rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In both disasters, oil-eating microbes were used to aid the clean-up process.” (Rozone, n.d.)

Veloworld’s workshop Smartwasher system comprises of three parts: a parts cleaning machine, a degreasing solution and a microbial filter mat. The filter mat releases millions of micro-organisms into the system where they break down or “eat” oil and grease that's washed off dirty parts into the machine, turning it all into harmless carbon dioxide and water. This process leaves the fluid clean and strong for every use, reducing the need for hazardous waste disposal.

Bioremediation at the Veloworld workshop

We use our Smartwasher to safely clean and degrease all bike parts, the machine’s liquid is warm and doesn’t give off any unpleasant vapours.

Check out this slideshow to see the results of using the Smartwasher on a customer’s cassette and chain.

Our Rozone Smartwasher is back in action! A couple of before and after beauty pics. This is part of our drive train deep cleansing spa services. BOOK NOW!!
Posted by Veloworld on Saturday, 9 May 2020

5 reasons why we love our Smartwasher

It safely cleans and degreases all bike parts.
It allows us to provide a quicker servicing time.
The degreasing solution runs through the machine at a warm temperature and doesn’t give off any vapours for a user-friendly experience = happy mechanics!
It provides us with solvent-free cleaning – better for our mechanics and the environment.
It makes use of clever microbiology technology which signifcantly reduces hazardous waste disposal.

The Smartwasher is an innovative parts cleaning system that uses bioremediation to make your bike shine like new.

See the results of bioremediation on your bike

When you book your bike in for a Pro or Elite Service at Veloworld, your bike will be deep cleaned with the use of our Smartwasher. Go to our workshop page to find out more and make an appointment.

References

Bracey, J. (2020, March 3). Can bike degreaser ever be environmentally friendly? From Cycling Weekly: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/can-bike-degreaser-ever-be-environmentally-friendly-450751

Philp, R. (2015, December 8). Bioremediation: The Pollution Solution? From Microbiology Society: https://microbiologysociety.org/blog/bioremediation-the-pollution-solution.html

Rozone. (n.d.). How it works - Science led cleaning. From Rozone: https://www.rozone.co.uk/rowasher/how-it-works

Schab, T. (2018, April 24). Effects of Hydrocarbons on the Environment. From Sciencing: https://sciencing.com/effects-hydrocarbons-environment-15879.html

WHAT IS BIOREMEDIATION?