5 cleanings that keep the travel industry running
The world relies on transit to keep things moving. This includes metro systems, airplanes and airports, cruise ships, and car-rental companies. These transportation systems require cleaning and maintenance to remain reliable for the millions of passengers who use them each year. Watch how these five cleanings help keep the travel industry running smoothly.
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00:00 From the cleaning crews removing rubber from runways, and de-ices ensuring planes are safe
00:07 for take-off in the winter, to the hundreds of dedicated workers that deep clean each
00:12 train car for one of the busiest transit systems in the world, we took a look at five cleanings
00:18 that happen behind the scenes in order to keep the travel industry running smoothly.
00:26 In the wintertime, one of the biggest risks airlines face is the buildup of ice on the
00:32 surface of an aircraft.
00:34 Ice impacts a plane's aerodynamics, and in extreme cases can prevent a plane from
00:40 creating lift.
00:47 This is Chris.
00:48 He's operating a specialized de-icing vehicle that's worth half a million dollars.
00:54 Chris is a certified de-icing instructor for Delta Airlines, and he's been doing this
00:59 work for 25 years.
01:01 Chris and his team have one key goal when temperatures drop below 50 degrees.
01:07 We have to have all the ice and snow off the airplane before we can allow it to go out.
01:12 There's no room for screw-ups.
01:14 This is a demanding job.
01:17 De-icers work in freezing temperatures and extreme weather, but that's not the only
01:22 challenge.
01:23 They're also racing against the clock.
01:26 When flight schedules are packed, Chris and his team might have less than five minutes
01:31 to ensure an aircraft is completely free of ice and snow, and is safe for takeoff.
01:38 The smaller airplanes we can do in two to five minutes, the wide-body airplanes, 10
01:43 minutes to a half an hour, just depending on how much snow is coming down and how much
01:47 was on the aircraft when it was at the gate.
01:51 If the time between de-icing and takeoff exceeds the holdover time, after which the de-icing
01:56 is no longer effective, they have to start the entire process all over again.
02:02 Sometimes we have to de-ice multiple times, especially if there's a runway closure.
02:06 We'll de-ice the airplane, and then they have to close it for plowing.
02:11 At that point, we'd have to re-de-ice the airplane all over again, and then the runway
02:16 will be open, and then they can take off.
02:20 Preparations for winter begin months before the snow hits the ground.
02:24 Each summer, Delta Air Lines gathers its 400 senior de-icing agents from across the country
02:30 for a three-day boot camp.
02:32 They arrive at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport between July and September to hone
02:38 their skills and learn new ones.
02:41 Then the agents return to their home airports to teach others what they've learned.
02:46 In addition to the practical training, Delta Air Line de-icers must pass a computer simulation
02:52 and courses in a classroom.
02:54 One of the reasons we want to make sure that we get all the contaminants off of the wing
02:58 is so that it doesn't go through the engine fan blades.
03:01 This is one of our engine fan blades that was damaged from ice coming off of a wing
03:07 and fouling out an engine fan blade.
03:10 It's a very real problem.
03:12 That's why we are all here de-icing the airplanes.
03:15 Today, Chris is on the de-icing pad, leading a practical training on an Airbus A220.
03:22 He starts with an inspection.
03:24 When we're doing our initial inspection of the aircraft for de-icing purposes, we're
03:27 going to start with the radome and see if we picked up any descending icing when the
03:32 aircraft was landing.
03:33 Is it coming through the clouds?
03:35 We want to make sure that nothing formed up there.
03:37 We also want to make sure that before we do any de-icing, all the avionics bays are closed,
03:42 all the cargo doors are closed, and then pay special attention to our fuel panels or the
03:48 fuel cells to see if we've got any underwing frost forming.
03:54 Depending on the wind, of course, if we have to shut the engines down so we can get in
03:58 closer, we can do that.
03:59 Obviously, safety is always going to be our number one.
04:02 Okay, so we never want to spray directly into the brakes and we never want to spray directly
04:08 into the suspension of the aircraft because we don't want to wash any of that grease off.
04:13 And if we do, we definitely want to notify the crew immediately.
04:17 We definitely want to pay attention to our nav lights because that's where some of the
04:21 rime ice is going to form.
04:22 It's a good place to look for it.
04:24 If we find it there, then it could be on the wing.
04:28 Make sense?
04:29 Perfect.
04:30 All right.
04:31 The de-icing process consists of several steps and can happen either at the gate or at a
04:36 special de-icing pad.
04:39 To start, pilots configure the wings by lowering the flaps and temporarily disabling the aircraft's
04:45 ventilation system.
04:47 So the de-ice process is very comparable to a car wash and wax.
04:54 Typically in Minneapolis, we'll start at the nose of the aircraft and then work our way
04:59 back spraying the fuselage and then the wing and then the tail.
05:04 We usually do at least a two-truck operation.
05:07 Sometimes if it's snowing real bad, we'll have up to four trucks.
05:12 The truck can lift the de-icer 30 feet into the air, where Chris uses a joystick to control
05:18 the nozzle that sprays the de-icing fluid at high pressure.
05:22 Each truck has large tanks that mix the liquids to reach specific chemical-to-water ratios.
05:30 You like that 2x4?
05:31 Half a million dollar truck and we use a 2x4 to hold these nozzles from spinning.
05:37 So yeah, this is where we fill the truck with our water, our type 1, and then our type 4
05:44 anti-icing fluids filled here.
05:47 Delta uses two types of liquid for de-icing.
05:50 We use propylene glycol, type 1 fluid for de-icing the aircraft.
05:55 That's the fluid that we heat up to 180 degrees.
05:57 And then we'll use Cryotec Polar Guard Xtend for the type 4 anti-icing.
06:04 On an average frosty day in Minneapolis, de-icers can use up to 2,000 gallons of fluid.
06:10 On a snowy day, they might need as much as 50,000 gallons.
06:16 The blend-to-mix ratio depends on the outside air temp.
06:21 So what's actually de-icing or what's actually melting the snow or the frost is actually
06:29 the heated water.
06:30 The reason that we add the chemical to the heated water is so it doesn't freeze to the
06:36 airplane.
06:38 The last step is the most crucial of all, making sure the airplane stays de-iced until
06:44 takeoff.
06:46 The fluid lasts on the aircraft depending on the amount of frozen precip that's coming
06:51 down.
06:52 So if there is no precip coming down, we just have to spray it off.
06:56 If it's currently snowing, then we have to use the type 4.
07:00 So it's kind of like your car antifreeze.
07:02 The more antifreeze you put in, the stronger the blend ratio is.
07:08 Once a de-icer signs off on the plane, the pilot will configure the flight position,
07:13 taxi to the runway, and take off.
07:19 We can try and set up as much trucks and overtime and staffing for any given scenario, but you
07:27 never can tell.
07:28 It's Minnesota, especially when we're dealing with the weather.
07:31 When the boot camp ends, all the de-icers return to their home airports to share what
07:36 they've learned and get ready for the upcoming winter.
07:40 But for the team here in Minneapolis, one of the coldest cities in the United States,
07:45 this is a year-round operation.
07:47 The most satisfying part of the job is the last flight of the night that takes off safely.
07:52 You know, I don't mind being outside in the winter.
07:56 I'm going to be outside either way.
07:58 Might as well be getting paid.
08:00 So next time you board a flight in the middle of winter and see an orange liquid sliding
08:05 off the wing, you'll know that someone like Chris is out there to make sure your plane
08:10 is ready to take off safely.
08:21 Every time a plane lands, each tire leaves around one and a half pounds of rubber on
08:25 the runway.
08:27 Tires are stationary until touchdown, when sudden contact with the ground causes friction,
08:31 quickly bringing them up to speeds of more than 150 mph and producing temperatures around
08:36 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:38 That temperature makes the tread rubber melt and bond to the runway and lights that guide
08:42 pilots.
08:44 The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger plane in the world, and it has 22 tires.
08:50 That's over 30 pounds of rubber lost per landing, equivalent to the amount of rubber in two
08:54 of your car's tires.
08:57 So how does all of that rubber get removed, and what's so dangerous about it building
09:01 up on runways?
09:02 There is two things you need to consider when you're talking rubber removal from the runway.
09:07 There's the rubber removal from the actual tarmac itself, but the other process is to
09:12 remove the rubber from the lights.
09:14 At London's Heathrow Airport, where Mohammed works, an average of 650 planes with 10 tires
09:19 each touchdown every single day.
09:22 That's 10,000 pounds of rubber daily.
09:24 A buildup in rubber can make the surface of a runway smooth, decreasing the friction needed
09:29 to land.
09:30 This can impact braking and control, and increase the risk of hydroplaning in wet conditions.
09:35 And runway lights, used to guide takeoff, landing, and taxiing, especially at night
09:40 and in low visibility conditions, are dimmed by the melted rubber bonding to them.
09:45 Within the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration recommends that rubber deposition
09:49 be checked weekly for any airport with at least 210 daily landings.
09:54 The process for checking rubber buildup isn't as simple as checking for skid marks, and
09:58 it requires the use of specialized tests and instruments.
10:02 So for the runway we have something called a friction test.
10:05 It's like a machine that has a wheel, and someone will drive down the runway and that
10:09 wheel will come down and it'll actually measure how much friction there is on the runway.
10:15 The key to a runway is you want it to have a lot of friction.
10:19 You don't want it to be slippery at all.
10:21 So that measurement of how much friction that wheel feels on the surface of the runway will
10:26 tell our teams when to go out there to remove the rubber.
10:30 Now to do that we have specialized machinery, which is like a massive truck with a hoover
10:35 on top of it.
10:36 So it's high pressure water, basically, but very hot.
10:40 And it blasts the tarmac, and then it just sucks up everything that comes off it.
10:46 And then there's removal of rubber from the lights.
10:48 Landing technology alone isn't enough for pilots to bring planes in safely.
10:52 Of course, they use ILS systems.
10:54 They use the instrument landing system when coming into land, but they still need a visual
11:00 reference.
11:01 So from a safety perspective, the pilots physically won't be able to see those lights.
11:06 And I once spoke to a pilot who was flying in from Scandinavia.
11:11 And I remember I always go to the pilots to speak to them about this stuff afterwards
11:15 because I want to get their perspective.
11:17 And I said to him, "What's it like to fly a plane at an airport and land a plane at
11:21 an airport, which doesn't maintain its lights very well?"
11:25 He said, "It's like trying to fly a plane into a black hole."
11:30 So for the lights themselves, we do a test where we measure how much light output comes
11:37 out of the lights.
11:39 So we have this trailer that hooks onto the back of a car.
11:42 And the sensors on the back of this trailer will tell you exactly how much light is coming
11:47 out of every single light.
11:50 And then you get all that data and you can tell which lights have rubber on them.
11:54 So the lights are really important and they need to be bright.
11:57 So to do that, we have another machine which uses dry soda.
12:01 And it has somebody on the back of the lance, and they go from one light to another, and
12:05 they point this thing at it.
12:07 And they shoot powder, this soda powder, at the actual lens of the light, and they get
12:12 rid of all the rubber that is on those lights.
12:17 From when the last plane takes off at night to when the first plane takes off in the morning,
12:20 there's a small window of time.
12:22 Our runways need to close.
12:24 So we need to wait until the last plane departs.
12:26 And then after the last plane departs, that's when our teams can come on.
12:31 So if you wanted to clean every single light on the runway, you can't really do it all
12:35 in one night because there's that many of them.
12:38 So for the lights themselves, we remove it at least twice per week.
12:43 This is something that people don't ever really think about, but there's a whole team of people
12:47 whose responsibility it is to make sure that these runways are clear.
12:51 And actually, people benefit from this job all the time because the only way that they're
12:56 able to go on holiday and enjoy the world is by using these strips of tarmac called
13:03 the runways.
13:07 The Tokyo Metro system is famous for being one of the cleanest subway systems in the
13:12 world.
13:13 It transports an average of about 6 million people daily.
13:16 And maintaining that reputation takes both an extensive amount of operational organization
13:22 and a ton of manpower.
13:28 This is Takayuki, a cleaning supervisor at the rail yard in Ayase.
13:32 He's worked for Tokyo Metro for almost 41 years, and it's his job to make sure the trains
13:38 are cleaned thoroughly.
13:39 The
13:52 cleaning staff's approach is straightforward but uncompromising.
13:56 Whatever Tokyo Metro's millions of daily passengers touch must be cleaned.
14:02 Today they're cleaning the train cars at the Ayase rail yard, which they do every 15 days.
14:08 The cleaners take careful measures to ensure each nook and cranny is cleaned.
14:13 Then we'll head to the Ginzaichome station, located in one of the busiest shopping areas
14:18 in Tokyo, Japan, where they clean the station top to bottom.
14:24 There are 41 trains on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda line.
14:27 The team cleans three to four trains a day.
14:31 Once a train comes into the rail yard, cleaners start by picking up any trash they see.
14:37 It takes four workers to clean the exterior.
14:40 It's all done by hand, and cleaners start by hosing it down with water and then using
14:45 brushes to scrub it with soap.
14:47 [Foreign language]
14:54 [Foreign language]
15:01 [Foreign language]
15:08 [Foreign language]
15:15 [Foreign language]
15:20 If the stain does not come off with a brush and soap, then they use a pad to scrub it
15:28 off.
15:29 Next, they rinse off all the soap.
15:34 Meanwhile, other staffers clean the interior.
15:37 It takes 10 workers, and they start at the top of the car and work their way down to
15:42 the bottom.
15:43 [Foreign language]
15:48 [Foreign language]
15:54 [Foreign language]
16:01 [Foreign language]
16:08 The first step is to clean the area where advertisements are placed.
16:14 Then they clean the luggage racks, and then the wall area.
16:18 They use rags and dusters to clean each part.
16:21 [Foreign language]
16:32 Cleaners then tackle the floors and start by mopping.
16:35 They also use sticks to clean crevices near the entrance of each door.
16:40 Twice a year, they wax the floors of each train car.
16:45 They remove all the old wax with a polisher, and then they let it dry.
16:49 Once it's dry, they apply two coats of wax.
16:53 It takes about an hour and a half from the time the wax is removed to the time the new wax dries.
16:59 [Foreign language]
17:15 Altogether, it takes workers a little over an hour to clean the trains, inside and out.
17:21 Once the cleaning is complete, Takayuki begins his inspection.
17:25 [Foreign language]
17:33 [Foreign language]
17:41 [Foreign language]
18:10 Once Takayuki approves the cleaning, the trains return to service,
18:14 ready to transport millions of passengers all over again.
18:20 Inside the Ginza Ichome Station, Chikako and Kenji work to clean the station daily.
18:26 [Foreign language]
18:49 Kazuhiro has been working for Tokyo Metro since he was 18.
18:53 He got his train license at 20 and drove trains until he was 57.
18:58 He leads the team responsible for the cleaning and security for this station and a few others.
19:03 There are nine Tokyo Metro train lines and 180 stations that provide service to the greater Tokyo area.
19:10 [Foreign language]
19:39 The escalator handrails are a high-touch surface within the station,
19:43 and Chikako takes extra care to wipe the belt with wet washcloths.
19:47 She wides the escalators up and down until they are all clean.
19:51 [Foreign language]
20:19 Chikako is also responsible for the dirtiest job of the day,
20:23 cleaning the two restrooms in the Ginza Ichome Station.
20:26 The main cleanings happen once a day.
20:28 She has been doing this work for the past 10 years.
20:32 [Foreign language]
20:58 The first thing Chikako does is check for any large pieces of trash.
21:03 If there are none, she sets up a fan and leaves it on throughout the cleaning process.
21:08 Efficiency is one of the key parts of her job,
21:10 and the fan allows the bathroom to dry quickly so as not to disrupt any customers who may need to use it.
21:16 [Foreign language]
21:42 Chikako sticks the ozone machine hose down the toilet and turns it on.
21:48 Then she scrubs each toilet by hand to make sure it's clean for the next customer.
21:55 She also cleans the walls.
21:57 It's important that she's using the right tools for each space so as not to cross-contaminate areas.
22:03 She uses a red dustcloth to clean areas from the knees down, which is called the contamination zone,
22:09 and a green one for clean zones, which are areas above the knees, such as mirrors and sinks.
22:15 [Foreign language]
22:43 [Foreign language]
23:05 Chikako is also responsible for cleaning the barrier between the platform and the train doors.
23:11 The top part is cleaned daily, while the lower part is cleaned once a week.
23:16 The staff makes sure the station platforms and walkways are clean for customers.
23:22 They do cleanings with brooms every day, but they also use a machine to clean the floors twice a month.
23:28 The machine works by sprinkling water onto the floor, scrubbing with a brush,
23:32 and then collecting the dirty water with a squeegee.
23:36 This way, there is no water left behind and no slippery floors.
23:41 [Foreign language]
23:47 Kenji also goes around daily with a shoulder vacuum and manually vacuums up any trash and dust he comes across,
23:54 especially in hard-to-reach areas.
23:57 [Foreign language]
24:15 Japan has a long history with cleaning and cleanliness that persists today.
24:21 [Foreign language]
24:41 [Foreign language]
25:00 [Foreign language]
25:15 Now we head off to sea and climb aboard one of the world's largest cruise ships,
25:21 Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas,
25:24 to watch how workers deal with millions of pounds of water, food, and dry waste every year.
25:31 [Sounds of a ship]
25:35 This cruise ship is basically a floating city, and just like in a normal city,
25:39 all its residents produce a lot of trash.
25:42 But there aren't any garbage trucks here to scoop it up and take it away.
25:45 We're at sea, obviously.
25:47 And since waste can't and shouldn't just be dumped in the ocean,
25:51 well, what do cruise ships do with all of it?
25:54 This is something the industry has been dealing with for years.
25:57 Carnival Cruise Line is coming clean about polluting oceans.
26:00 Princess Cruises was fined $40 million in 2016 for illegal dumping,
26:05 and Carnival got hit with a $20 million fine in 2019 for disposing of plastic waste in the ocean.
26:11 Carnival Corporation's issues really brought the need for better technology
26:15 so that these ships could operate more efficiently.
26:18 Cruise lines have been working on systems to purify water and deal with waste inside ships.
26:22 Up until now, these types of options weren't available.
26:26 All this new tech was built into Royal Caribbean's largest and newest ship, Symphony of the Seas.
26:31 The company says it's a zero-landfill ship,
26:33 which means it uses everything from recycling to water filtration to deal with its own waste.
26:39 And this guy's in charge of making sure no single water bottle is unaccounted for.
26:43 Welcome to Waste and Recycling Center.
26:45 We're down on Deck 2, a secret crew-only area of the ship.
26:48 Crew members check all the ship's trash cans for recyclables
26:51 and bring them down here for Alex's team to handle.
26:54 Despite being the only waste facility on this massive ship, it's surprisingly quiet.
27:00 Alex said the busiest time is in the morning, when things are unpackaged for the day.
27:04 This is the waste streams that we have.
27:06 Every waste stream has its own way of handling it.
27:10 There are separate teams to deal with each incoming recyclable--glass, cardboard, plastic, and metal.
27:16 This is our incinerator room.
27:18 So we have two incinerators, one and two.
27:21 This area is manned 24 hours a day.
27:23 We have 10 crew members who are working here, five in the morning and five in the evening.
27:29 Crew members separate glass into colors--green, brown, and white.
27:33 This is the byproduct of it after we crush it.
27:39 They can process upwards of 13,000 pounds of glass for a week-long cruise.
27:44 All the small glass pieces are stored in bins until the ship docks.
27:48 Plastic goes through this massive compactor.
27:50 Even though the ship's gotten rid of plastic straws, it still relies on bottled water
27:54 because, for health and safety reasons, no cruise ship is allowed to have water fountains.
27:58 So every week, they crush about 528 gallons of water bottles.
28:03 We are compacting the cardboard over there.
28:05 Throughout the day, cardboard is stacked up in this machine, called a baler.
28:09 Once it's full, it's all compressed into bundles.
28:12 And used aluminum cans, well, they're sent through this baler.
28:15 The machine squeezes them down into big cubes,
28:18 which are then stored in a fridge just off the waste room.
28:21 This area is actually for the items that can produce smell, the garbage.
28:26 And that smell could get pretty bad.
28:28 The waste is stored for up to seven days at a time, until the ship docks back in Miami,
28:33 where all the plastic, aluminum, paper, and glass go to recycling partner facilities.
28:37 In 2018, Royal Caribbean recycled 43.7 million pounds of waste.
28:43 And any rebates earned from these recycling programs go back to the Employee Retirement Fund.
28:48 The cruise line is hoping that it's a nice incentive for employees
28:50 to bring recycling down from their own crew cabins.
28:53 So what about things that can't get recycled?
28:56 For example, food.
28:57 Every week, the ship loads up 600,000 pounds of provisions.
29:01 And for the food that's not eaten, well, the company had to figure out how to get rid of all of that, too.
29:06 Each one of the ship's restaurants and 36 kitchens has its own suction drain.
29:10 Chefs and waiters keep food scraps in separate buckets.
29:13 Then, once they've gotten enough, they place it all in this special drain.
29:17 All the food waste ends up in one big pipe that runs through the entire ship.
29:21 And that pipe leads to what's known as the hydroprocessor.
29:24 Those pipes over there, so this is where the food waste is passing through.
29:30 This is being processed through here.
29:32 This machine has a bunch of tiny layers of mesh to break down the food.
29:36 It's being stored in our tank. We have two tanks of comminuted food waste.
29:41 And the final step? Incineration.
29:44 Now, let's talk about your toilet waste.
29:46 Yep, we're going to go there.
29:48 It's all part of the water treatment system on board, controlled from the engineering room.
29:52 All the waste water that we are generating on board the ship is being collected.
29:58 Nothing goes overboard unless we have run it through a treatment plant.
30:01 Water is divided into two categories.
30:04 Grey water, from sinks, laundries, and drains.
30:07 And black water.
30:09 That includes everything from the galleys and your toilets, including your urine.
30:13 This is then being mixed together and run through the advanced waste water purification plant.
30:18 The purification system purifies the water to a point above the U.S. federal standard, which is almost safe to drink.
30:24 And then it runs several filtration processes before it's being kept on board or it's being discharged overboard.
30:31 When we are at sea with a certain distance from land in order to meet the different local and international regulations.
30:38 Anything that can't be recycled or reused on board goes to what's known as a waste-to-energy facility.
30:43 Now, we didn't get to see it for ourselves, but Royal Caribbean said heat or gas from the waste is collected and converted to energy.
30:50 That's definitely within their best interest to be the most environmentally friendly because it significantly can reduce the waste on board,
30:57 the weight that they have to carry, the fuel usage, and it reduces their operational expenses as well.
31:03 And after one week at sea, the recycling gets cleared out, incoming provisions are brought on board,
31:08 and the crew prepares the ship to start the process all over again.
31:14 Every year, tens of thousands of people attend Burning Man in Nevada's Black Rock Desert,
31:20 and many of them rent cars, RVs, and trucks to attend the festival.
31:25 But Burning Man can get messy, and the desert's plier dust that collects on vehicles is high in alkaline,
31:32 which can corrode a car's metal and cause long-term damage if not thoroughly cleaned.
31:38 Car rental providers in the area, like Enterprise Rent-A-Car, brace for Burning Man each year.
31:44 In a typical year, detailers expect to find rental cars returned coated in layers of dry desert sand.
31:51 But this year's extreme weather left vehicles in even worse condition than usual,
31:56 which meant that detailers like Miguel and his team had their work cut out for them.
32:03 These cars are really, really bad. They are covered with sand, like, everywhere.
32:08 Like, sand everywhere. The interior, the outside, the engine.
32:12 This year it rained, so this is a different kind of sand now.
32:17 So it's getting a little bit harder than usual.
32:20 Miguel and his team must pay close attention to the details when cleaning the mud-battered rental returns.
32:27 Whether the weather is extreme or not, any dust or debris that settles into the crevices of a vehicle
32:33 has the potential to discolour or damage a car if the cleaning process is not done properly.
32:39 Today, Miguel and his team are focused on detailing a white Jeep Gladiator from start to finish.
32:47 And if they do a thorough job, the Jeep will look brand new for its next group of renters.
32:53 The team begins by assessing the scale of the job at hand, starting with the car's exterior.
32:58 All of the rental returns first go through the automatic car wash in Enterprise's cleaning bays.
33:04 But if a vehicle is returned significantly muddier than most,
33:08 it might also need an initial pressure wash to loosen the mud and any other debris.
33:13 After passing through the automatic wash the first time,
33:17 the muddiest Burning Man cars might need a bit more elbow grease.
33:21 For this, Miguel uses a brush with a long handle to loosen any remaining dirt.
33:26 After detailing by hand with the scrub brush, Miguel does another round of pressure washing,
33:31 then decides if the Jeep needs an extra run through the automatic wash.
33:35 So right now we just run the car through the car wash.
33:38 It looks OK. We just got to wait and see how it looks after it dries.
33:43 But next we're going to do the inside. We're going to vacuum and do the panels and windows.
33:50 But before they can start cleaning the interior,
33:52 Miguel needs to check under the hood to inspect the car's engine,
33:56 which may also have been coated in fine alkaline sand from the Black Rock Desert,
34:01 often referred to as plier dust.
34:03 This stubborn sand is made up of remnants from the prehistoric lake bed that predated the Black Rock Desert.
34:10 The dust itself is extremely fine,
34:12 which means it can settle into a vehicle's smallest grooves and crevices inside and out.
34:19 The dust's high alkaline pH is also corrosive and can damage upholstery, plastics and even electronics.
34:27 Burning Man organisers are well aware of the plier dust's potential risk to vehicles,
34:32 as many festival goers this year learned first hand.
34:36 The official Burning Man website suggests festival goers wash their cars immediately upon returning home
34:43 before the alkaline dust has a chance to damage their vehicles.
34:47 It recommends using an air compressor to blow the dust off the engine.
34:51 In extremely dirty cases, pressure washing may be the most effective method of deep cleaning,
34:57 but this requires a level of equipment and expertise that's best left to trained professionals like Miguel and his crew.
35:04 When they're ready to clean the interiors, Miguel removes the Jeep's floor mats.
35:09 He scrubs a detergent deep into the mat's fibres and uses the pressure washer to rinse off the suds.
35:16 Finally, he runs an extractor over the floor mats to remove excess moisture.
35:21 Next, the team gets to work cleaning every interior surface.
35:26 This phase includes deep cleaning the upholstery and interior doors
35:31 and detailing the dashboard, centre console, gearbox and steering wheel.
35:36 They dry vacuum loose plier sand before applying cleaning solutions, deodorisers and disinfectants.
35:44 So right now this is, this is the thing that we use for the interior.
35:49 It's a multi-purpose solution that we use.
35:53 We're going to use it on the seats, hopefully help us with all the stains and the sand and dirt.
35:59 They use small handheld dust brushes to loosen ground in dirt
36:04 and microfibre cloths to wipe down the hard plastic surfaces until they're spotless and dry.
36:11 This sand is different because it's kind of like chalk.
36:14 It sticks on the panels and the car and the tyres.
36:18 So it's kind of, it's a different kind of sand.
36:21 That's why we got to use these special chemicals and pressure washer.
36:25 The last step of the detailing process is drawing the floors and seats of the Jeep.
36:31 Then the Jeep is nearly restored to its pre-festival state
36:35 and is ready for any finishing touches before its big reveal.
36:39 We just finished the interior.
36:41 We did the carpets, the seats and the plastics.
36:45 Right now we're going to do pressure washing one more time.
36:47 There's still some sand, there's dirt under the tyres.
36:51 So we finally finished with the Burning Man car.
36:55 So if you can follow me I'll show you how it looks now.
36:58 So as you can see we cleaned all the mud, all the sand, all the dirt and the tyres.
37:05 We basically shampooed the carpet, the seats and also the driver.
37:12 We also cleaned the grill, the windshield, we got all the bugs.
37:18 This car, as you can see, looks good as new.
37:22 It took us a couple of hours.
37:24 It's finally done.
37:25 I don't think anybody's going to notice that we went to Burning Man.
37:29 That's my opinion.
37:30 I hope the customer agrees with me.
37:32 [Music]
37:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]