Do you know which countries more than ours sprinkle their roads with salt?

18.02.2022

The use of pure salt as a de-icing agent has a long and successful history. And if you think that only domestic utilities are actively using it, then you are mistaken.
 
According to Alexey Bulychev, commercial director of Russalt, which he cited at the St. Petersburg International Road Forum, the TOP-7 leading countries in the use of pure salt as PGM (anti-icing materials) are: USA (20 million tons / year), Canada (5 Mt/y), Germany (2.5 Mt/y), France (1 Mt/y), South Korea (0.7 Mt/y), Norway (0.5 Mt/y) and Poland (0.46 million tons/year).

According to Russalt’s estimates, in Russia, enterprises of the Russian road industry annually consume from 3.5 to 3.8 million tons of technical salt. At the same time, the technologies for its use in the fight against ice in Russia and Western countries differ.

Soviet methods are not relevant

“Beyond the Hill” uses pure salt or chemical reagents combined with salt. We use mainly sand-salt salt mixture (PSS). According to Aleksey Bulychev, this method of combating slipperiness on the roads came to us from the USSR and does not take into account modern requirements for a comfortable urban environment, the quality and purity of the surrounding air and the environment in general.

At the same time, there are positive examples of the use of modern methods of dealing with ice by using both pure salt and combined chemicals based on NaCl in cities and on federal highways.
As positive examples, Mr. Bulychev names such regions as Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Tyumen region, Tula region, Rostov region, Orenburg region, as well as some sections of toll roads.

Enough salt for everyone

According to the expert, the information that salt sprinkled on our roads has a negative impact on the soil of adjacent lawns does not stand up to scrutiny. At the same time, salt reserves in domestic deposits are so huge that they will last for the next 800 years.

 Source: automotive online magazine 100km.ru