Wood pellets instead of road salt

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Picked up from a FB post, I thought this was really interesting....  

 

Great to see new trends and progressive environmental protection measures being trialled. Thankfully we don't suffer from too much frost in Cornwall, but it would be interesting to know how many tons are dumped on the roads of Cornwall (and more broadly the UK) each year and what the environmental impact is.

 

This quote is taken from the Smithsonian (Jan 2014 followed up in May 17) so it's certainly not a new line of development:

 

"...Road salt pollution is generally a bigger issue for the surrounding environment and the organisms that live in it. It’s estimated that chloride concentrations above 800 ppm are harmful to most freshwater aquatic organisms - because these high levels interfere with how animals regulate the uptake of salt into their bodies - and for short periods after a snow melt, wetlands nearby highways can surpass these levels. A range of studies has found that chloride from road salt can negatively impact the survival rates of crustaceans, amphibians such as salamanders and frogs, fish, plants and other organisms. There’s even some evidence that it could hasten invasions of non-native plant species..."

Since Cornwall Council has a statutory duty under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 it will be interesting to understand how this activity is not in breach of that Act. It may be that the upfront cost of pellet is more expensive than salt, but that excludes any consideration of the associated environmental harm caused by salt. A true understanding of costs and liabilities would doubtless provide evidence of a cost saving if we were served by any form of open thinking and imagination by our Local Authority.

 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

I've posted these before, but just to illustrate the abject, casual disdain attached to the use of road salt, and the ambivalence of Local Authorities and major government departs to the resultant damaging environmental effect, the following pictures were taken at Derriford Hospital. These trees are subject to Tree Preservation Orders too.

[djbobbins]

The company I work for runs a power station in Cheshire which abstracts water from a river for processing into boiler feed water (very high purity). The plant operators tell me that the chloride levels in the river water make it harder to get the right quality of finished water - so much so that they say they can tell when the gritters have been out.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Not sure how this thread has managed to come up twice??