Cleaning Water Butts

[mew]

Hi there

My Dad has given me 3 large containers which I hope to use as water butts for my new veg plot. Hes had them for years so it seems a waste not to put them to good use.

He reckons they were used for flavourings in cordials and on having a sniff of the inside this could well be the case but one also smells like its had turps or white spirit in there, but we cant be sure what it is.

My Dad used to drive the big tankers many moons ago which would carry chemicals one day and choc the next. He said they used to be cleaned using parafin and a high pressure hot steam hose, so hes suggested doing the same thing to the water butts.

We have an industrial diesel run hot pressure hose so could do this no problem, but im a bit cautious as I dont want to kill any crops if this doesnt work.

Has anyone got any thoughts?

Many thanks

MEW

[Boots]

cor.. that's a bit tricky mew. Hard to say really. Just cleaning them can contaminate the ground or waterways, if they are chem based, so if you decide to rinse maybe give a thought about where you do it.

We have a mob here that comes round and cleans drums once a year. I have no idea what they use though... I guess its a detergent of some kind, and most ag drums hold oils and fuels.

If it's just cordial then that should be ok. Maybe the other one has fermented?... giving off the spirit smell?

[mattachinelee]

I use white spirits to clean my painting brushes and it emulsifies beautifully in regular washing up liquid. I would guess that you would be able to use very soapy water to clean the barrels out, although it will be fairly labour intensive for you to scrub them - maybe you could do it with a mop rather than a cloth.

The run off/waste water from this is an interesting question though, does the washing up liquid just add another pollutant on top of the turps type stuff? Or, is the emulsifying action sustained long enough to allow the waste to be safe to run off?

[contadina]

Camping advice often states that you should regularly clean water butts with warm soapy water - which does seem to work.

We used a couple of 25 litre plastic containers to pick up our olive oil from the mill and unfortunately this seems to have tainted them to such an extent that whatever liquid placed in them takes on a rather unpleasant flavour. Any hints on how to get rid of this will be greatly welcomed as we use the containers for picking up drinking water and for picking up milk to make cheese.

[Wombat]

Have you tried cleaning with a pressure cleaner or steaming the container out? Steamng is probably a bit more difficult but when i worked in the chemical industry we would put a steamhose into a container and let it blast steam into it. That got rid of most things....

Nev

[contadina]

That sounds like a plan and I know where I can borrow one. Thanks Nev.

[Wombat]

No worries Mate

Nev

[hedgewizard]

You didn't mention what the containers were made of. Metal ones can just be cleaned out, but if it's plastic and smells like turps I'd throw it away because the plastic won't be food grade and will leak carcinogens forever and a day.