Car wash chain adds tech to kill COVID-19
A Milford-based car wash chain is installing technology in the waiting rooms of its full-service locations to help fight COVID-19 transmissions, company officials said.
Splash Car Wash has begun installing PuraClenz air and surface purification systems in waiting rooms of 11 of its locations in Connecticut and four in New York state. PuraClenz is a New Canaan-based technology company that develops devices that use an internal ultraviolet light that reacts with titanium dioxide to produce positive and negatively charged ions that destroy COVID-19 pathogens, according to the company.
The company says on its website that the product is “over 99% effective at reducing the MS2 virus in the air. MS2 bacteriophage is a FDA recognized proxy of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.”
Mark Curtis, chief executive officer of
Splash Car Wash, said using the PuraClenz devices “is extremely important to hit this new wave of the pandemic aggressively to ensure the safety of our customers, employees and community.”
The PuraClenz devices are being installed in Splash Car Wash locations in Hamden,
Shelton, Greenwich, Cos Cob, Stamford, Darien, Wilton, Norwalk, Westport, Fairfield and Southbury.
But David Cadden, a professor emeritus at Quinnipiac University’s School of Business, said he doesn’t see installation of the devices as swaying anybody’s opinion regarding which car wash to use.
“I think it’s a bit extreme, but if you are a good salesman, especially with the advance of the delta variation (of COVID-19), more power to you,” Cadden said. “I don’t know if it would be enough to sway me to use a different car wash. I just don’t see it adding any value.”
Splash Car Wash was started in 1981 by Curtis and Chris Fisher with a single location in Greenwich. The two men currently operate 27 locations in Connecticut, Vermont and New York.