WashMe-EnviGreen

Press Releases and News

Lean, green, cleaning machine --I Go Cars July 2009

Lately, you may have noticed a new item in our cars: a small card in the upper-left corner of the windshield that records the most recent cleaning date for the vehicle. Our cars get a thorough interior/exterior detailing and wash and wax every two weeks. Along with our members’ helpful assistance (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), the cleaning crew behind the scenes is working small miracles every day.

That crew is headed by a remarkable entrepreneur, Tanya Killian, whose company, WashMe-EnviGreen, puts a novel green twist on car washing. Each car gets the full treatment with less than a quart of water, reusable microfiber towels, and 100% biodegradable, no-foam products (made in Colorado) that meet stringent EPA standards and result in no runoff or waste water. Hybrids and alternatively fueled vehicles receive discounts on all her services.

Killian, whose client roster includes high-rise residential towers in Chicago, also provides green housekeeping and boat-cleaning services. She’s opening a green car wash at 146 W. Erie on July 4 that will be open to the general public on weekends.

She launched her company in late 2007, started with a quarter of the I-GO fleet last fall, and—after impressing our fleet manager with her dedication and exacting standards—assumed cleaning duties for our entire fleet this past April. Killian started with two part-time employees; now she’s got 18. Seems this former financial analyst—who’s certified with women- and minority-business orgs and too many environmental orgs to count—is starting to clean up big-time.

“I was sitting in a car wash one day, seeing how filthy the process was, and I said to myself, ‘This could be better,’” says Killian of her initial inspiration. “I went online, checked it out, and there was nothing around like this. No eco-friendly car wash or cleaning service. So I came up with some stuff.”

We’re glad she did. And we hope you are, too, the next time you climb into an I-GO car that’s been green-washed by Tanya and her crew.

IGoCarSharing : Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Wall Street Journal's "Cranky Consumer" columnist reviewed four car sharing companies in today's paper. The column is a Consumer Reports-type deal that makes apples-to-apples comparisons, hopefully enabling consumers to make better choices. I-GO Car Sharing was the only local, nonprofit service included; the others are Zipcar, Connect by Hertz (the rental car company recently launched a car-sharing service in select markets), and Mint, a recent start-up based in New York.

We're happy to report that, with the exception of a half-eaten French fry left on the floor by the member who had our car before the reporter's reservation, I-GO came out smelling more or less like roses.

The Zipcar was "filthy," apparently, and while we're inclined to gloat, it must be said that all car-sharing companies can commiserate with that. We all have cleaning services. I-GO's cleaning service is the ultra-green-friendly WashMe-EnviGreen, a Matteson-based progressive service run by dynamic entrepreneur Tanya Killian. Every car in our fleet is cleaned like clock-work, inside and out, at least every two weeks. But in a national culture that's so used to service-oriented business models that don't necessitate customer responsibility, it's easy to point a finger at us—or the other companies reviewed in this piece—and not realize that a communal business model is at work here.

We've got 12,000 members. And we love 'em all. We just launched a new mobile reservations site that's the latest, greatest member benefit at I-GO. But we need members to alert us to dirty cars, too, so that we can pinpoint recurring problems and address the situation with members whose trash is the next person's annoyance. It's not like we want our members to be ratting each other out, but, well, that's sort of the nature of the beast when you've got 12,000 people sharing 200 vehicles. We do our best to keep up with the cleaning, but we absolutely need to function as a community that works together for the betterment of the whole.

Wax On : Idea Bite June, 2009

WashMe-EnviGreen, check order page for seven downtown locations (888-473-6065). Exterior Wash and Wax, $23. Parking rates not included.

8 W. Monroe St. - Map It
345 E. Ohio St. - Map It

WashMe EnviGreen on Flickr

May, 2008: 

Green Festival Chicago, a project of Global Exchange and Co-Op America