Environmentally Friendly Snow- and Ice-Removal Tips
Follow these tips to keep your driveway and sidewalks ice-free this winter, while minimizing the environmental impact:
Shovel Early, Shovel Often
Removing fresh snow before it has a chance to harden into ice is the best way to keep your pavement clear. Deicers work best on thin layers of snow or ice that need to be melted, so shovel first, break up any ice patches you can and then add the salt.
Apply Salt Sparingly
Scatter the deicer and leave space between the grains. A 12-ounce coffee mug full of salt is enough to treat a 20-foot driveway or 10 sidewalk squares. Using more than the recommended amount of salt won’t speed up melting. And when temperatures drop below 15 degrees, skip it altogether, because salt won’t work at all.
Buy Early and Check Labels
Buy your deicing product before the big storm, so you don’t end up staring at empty shelves in the stores. Check the label before you buy. A deicer with calcium magnesium, or CMA, is the most ecofriendly deicer. Although slightly more expensive, calcium chloride (CaCl2) requires less salt, works at lower temperatures and does not contain cyanide, unlike sodium chloride (NaCl, rock salt), which does. Urea is sometimes promoted as “lawn-friendly,” as excess urea will act as a fertilizer. However, the application rate for urea is far greater than your lawn would require, and most of the excess urea will only end up “fertilizing” the stream.
Avoid Kitty Litter and Ashes
While these products are environmentally friendly, they are only marginally effective at adding traction, and don’t melt ice. If you need traction, mixing in a small amount of sand and using even less salt is a better option.
Learn more at bit.ly/saltwise.