Pressure cleaning in Liverpool

At the 2021 Census, 65.0 per cent of the 10,896 occupied private dwellings in the suburb of Liverpool were flats or apartments, and 24.3 per cent were separate houses. Across New South Wales it was 21.7 and 65.6 per cent.

The Liverpool local government area as a whole runs the other way: 73.1 per cent separate houses and 16.3 per cent flats across 69,314 occupied dwellings.

So a job in the city centre is usually common property for a strata building or a shopfront, and a job in the rest of the council area is a house, its gutters and its driveway.

Liverpool City Council says the city is home to two of the most significant rivers in the Sydney region, the Georges River and the Hawkesbury Nepean River. It names Chipping Norton Lakes on the Georges.

Council is a member of the Georges Riverkeeper, and says it will provide streetscape raingardens to treat stormwater runoff from new roads and the development beside them.

Which river a driveway drains to depends on which side of the council area it is on. The answer on the job is the same either way: contained, recovered, taken away.

Council's pollution page says diffuse water pollution comes mainly from runoff after rain, from roads, industrial and commercial premises, parks, gardens and households. It lists what stormwater typically contains, including litter, nutrients, bacteria, pesticides, heavy metals, sediment, oils and grease.

The same page says the Protection of the Environment Operations Act gives council's authorised officers the power to issue clean up, prevention and infringement notices. Oil and grease off a car park or a loading dock is exactly the runoff that page describes, which is why we do that work with hot water and full recovery.