Beet Juice is keeping Canadian Municipalities ice-free

An organic alternative to road salt is helping Canadian municipalities keep their streets ice-free — and smelling kind of sweet.

Cowansville, Que. is just the latest municipality to turn to beet juice, reports CBC News.

The town says mixing the sticky juice with regular road salt reduces the salt’s environmental impact and saves money.

“A portion of the beet is given to the animals. The rest is used to deglaze roads,” Sylvain Perreault, Cowansville’s infrastructure superintendent, told CBC.

Other municipalities like Williams Lake in northern B.C. have been using Beet 55, a mixture of saline, sugar and beets.

Beet 55 is sprayed on roads before snow arrives. It lowers the temperature required for rock salt to melt ice, and can last for two to five days — meaning it can last through multiple snowstorms.


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