Where does the dirty water go? How responsible bin cleaning protects Lincoln's waterways

When you blast out a garbage can, the water that comes off it is not just dirty, it is a slurry of rotted food, grease, and bacteria. So here is a question most people never ask before hosing a can down in the driveway: where does that water actually go? In Lincoln, the answer matters more than you might think, and it is the single biggest difference between a responsible bin-cleaning service and a guy with a pressure washer.

Two very different drains

Most cities, Lincoln included, run two completely separate underground systems, and confusing them is the root of the problem.

• The sanitary sewer carries water from your sinks, toilets, and drains to a treatment plant, where it is cleaned before being returned to the environment.
• The storm drain, the grate at the curb, carries rainwater directly to local creeks, streams, and Salt Creek, with little or no treatment in between.

That second point is the one that surprises people. The grate in the street is not connected to a treatment plant. Whatever goes down it goes more or less straight into the waterways that run through the city.

Why bin wastewater is a real pollutant

The runoff from cleaning a trash can is genuinely harmful to a waterway, even though it looks like "just water." It carries:

• Organic load, rotting food and grease, which feed algae and deplete the oxygen fish and other aquatic life need to survive.
• Bacteria, the E. coli, Salmonella, and other microbes that thrive in the can ride the water straight into the environment.
• Soaps and cleaning agents, even mild detergents are not meant to be discharged into a creek.

Letting that flow into a storm drain is not a gray area. Discharging anything other than clean stormwater into the system is prohibited under the stormwater rules that protect local water quality. A driveway rinse that ends at the curb grate is, quite literally, dumping food-waste bacteria into Lincoln's creeks.

How responsible cleaning handles it

A proper bin-cleaning setup is built so the dirty water never reaches the storm drain in the first place.

1. The can is cleaned over a system that captures the runoff instead of letting it sheet off into the street.
2. That wastewater is collected and hauled away, then disposed of through the sanitary sewer where it can be properly treated, not the storm drain.
3. The result: the bin gets cleaned and the waterways stay protected. No trade-off.

Why we built it this way

This is the part of our service we are quietly proud of. Every clean is done so the wastewater is captured and disposed of properly, never sent down the storm drain. It is the difference between a service that looks clean and one that genuinely is, for your can and for the creeks the next neighborhood over. Lincoln is our home too, and we would rather do the harder, right thing than cut a corner you would never see.

Let us handle the gross part

When you book a clean with us, that question, where does the dirty water go?, already has a good answer.

Lincoln Bins cleans, sanitizes, and deodorizes your bins right on the curb on your trash day, you never touch a dirty can. See plans and pricing, or book a first clean in about two minutes.