this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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A growing body of research suggests that road salt contributes to metal corrosion and can have a negative impact on ecosystems. Despite the introduction of some successful alternatives, many Canadian cities are still using salt because it's cheaper.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (11 children)

Like someone else said in the other thread, brine is still salt. Also, sand fucking sucks and barely works at all. So what's the real alternative?

[–] mrmule 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Sweden uses gravel. This also causes many windscreen chips, but yeah.

[–] NarrativeBear 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Its interesting that any discussions about road salt always start with cars being the leading argument. Car dependency is so intertwined in our current society.

Also, worth noting salt causes corrosion to cars, infrastructure, and not to mention in large quantities causes negative environmental effects, but gravel has a chance of chipping my windshield?!

The different between salt and gravel damage to a car is just time span. Us humans are just really bad at perceiving long term effects. So naturally gravel being what cases damage sooner to a car is assumed to be far worse.

Now if you think of snow removal on sidewalks and walkways. Gravel and sand, or just compacting the snow like they do in Sweden is just as effective.

Here is some videos of snow removal at the pedestrian level, notice no salt is used on pedestrian infrastructure such as walkways or trails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Tell that to my local transit authority. With the amount of salt they use at bus stations you would think the concrete itself needed a daily dose of salt to survive.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also we could all just drive a bit slower when it’s fucking snowing.

They used to just sand the roads in my town and everyone was fine, we just slowed down and drove like it was a little slippery.

Everyone wants to go 80mph everywhere all the fucking time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

North american roads are also usually designed in a way that encourages speeding, usually by having wide lanes, straight roads and no trees or other obstacles close to the roadway.

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