Quebec town swaps out salt for eco-friendly wood chips on icy roads
The town of Rosemère, Que., is opting for a more environmentally-friendly way of keeping roads from becoming slippery due to ice, snow and freezing rain — it's using wood chips.
The town, located just northwest of Laval, is testing out wood chips as a replacement for salt or gravel on the roads.
Rosemère Mayor Eric Westram said they are ditching the "old, conventional way" in favour or something more eco-friendly and more efficient.
"All this salt and all those materials end up in the river," said Westram. "So if you want to be conscientious of the environment, you have to look at other alternatives."
He said it all began when a public works employee attended a conference on snow clearing and came back with the idea to try out the wood chips on a couple of key streets that are known in the area for becoming icy.
'As natural as it comes'
Westram said the wood chips are completely biodegradable and that they can help vehicles maintain traction in –30 C, compared with salt which he says works up to –15 C.
"Wood is as natural as it comes," he told CBC. "This is definitely the thing of the future."
Since the wood chips don't disintegrate, the city has to treat the streets much less often.
"Everybody wants to try it," said André Prevost, who owns the exclusive Canadian licence to make and sell the chips, which are coated with magnesium chloride to help them adhere to the surface.
"The people want to become more green," he said.
Prevost just started making and selling them two months ago in his Joliette factory.
Though the chips cost more than conventional salt, they cover a larger area. After a cost analysis is completed, Westram said he hopes to extend the practice to more streets next winter.
My neighbour tosses salt on our sidewalk and just the other day I noticed quite a large circle of missing ice (approx 4 inch diameter) around one kernel/grain of road salt. In my opinion road salt definitely does a fine job of actually melting ice, wood chips (I would assume) will only cover the ice and can probably easily be dispersed by someone spinning their tires or simply taking a corner. Hmmm, the coat of wood chips may even help insulate the ice allowing the ice to stay around longer.
Will be interesting to hear how this works out for them.
-- Edited by Pete Moss on Tuesday 23rd of January 2018 09:40:40 AM
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Actually, in real racing ... it IS how fast you went.
sounds like salt to me that they coat the chips with?
Magnesium chloride is the name for the chemical compound with the formula MgCl2 and its various hydrates MgCl2(H2O)x. These salts are typical ionic halides, being highly soluble in water. The hydrated magnesium chloride can be extracted from brine or sea water. In North America, magnesium chloride is produced primarily from Great Salt Lake brine. It is extracted in a similar process from the Dead Sea in the Jordan valley. Magnesium chloride, as the natural mineral bischofite, is also extracted (via solution mining) out of ancient seabeds; for example, the Zechstein seabed in northwest Europe. Some magnesium chloride is made from solar evaporation of seawater. Anhydrous magnesium chloride is the principal precursor to magnesium metal, which is produced on a large scale. Hydrated magnesium chloride is the form most readily available.
The difference is that salt only works down (not up) to a certain temperature, while the wood chips are supposedly effective at much colder temperatures. This might not mean much here in the southern rust belt but it will make a big difference further north.
Sand, wood, no difference. Like Time Traveller said, salt is only good for a few degrees below zero. For low temperatures where salt loses its effectiveness, you need a product that has a mechanical bond to ice.
we used to spray calcium chloride on the belts at coal plant i worked at in the winter to defrost them.saved a lot of shovelling(coal),but was a killer on leather boots and steel,and bearings if you went overboard
-- Edited by 72endurawagon on Wednesday 24th of January 2018 12:36:23 PM
sounds like a sound idea
BUT
it probably means there's going to be lots more sewer sucking trucks about and I hope the chips don't clog up the local waste water treatment plant .. which I'm sure is going to be the resulting issue
- if this "town" has storm sewers ..
Quebec town swaps out salt for eco-friendly wood chips on icy roads
